more on king bongo
"An exotic portrait of sex, violence, corruption and conspiracy in Cuba."
-The Washington Post
"Big picture epic storytelling full of believable myth. Sanchez has taken the entire historical and cross-cultural immensity of (Havana) and telescoped it into an intricately twisted mystery."
-San Francisco Chronicle
A fevered dream of glamour, intrigue and corruption
set in 1950's Havana. On New Year's Eve 1957, a terrorist bomb rips through
Havana's famous Tropicana nightclub. King Bongo, a rogue Cuban American,
tortured by a mysterious past and possessed of a mythic musical talent,
goes on a hunt for the culprits, and for his sister, known as the Panther,
Cuba's most exotic showgirl, who disappeared in the explosion.
Navigating Havana's maze of colonial backstreets, red-light districts,
Chinatown alleys, swank country clubs and opulent casinos, Bongo becomes
ensnared by other complicated and outrageous lives--American hit men
plotting political assassination, decadent movie stars trolling with
bait of teenage mistresses, prophetic shoeshine boys and hotel maids
willing to sacrifice their lives for a social cause, a beautiful American
socialite weaving a web of erotic intrigue--and, more dangerously, a
Machiavellian secret police operative, with whom Bongo will have a final
explosive showdown.
KING BONGO re-imagines a world of lush sensuality where Cuban and American
cultures collide in a riveting drama of graphic power.
