Pedro Juam Gutierrez - Our GG in Havana

(Faber)

To fans of the author behind such classic works as Brighton Rock and The Quiet American, it might come as something of a surprise to read the first 30 pages in this curt novel. Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, himself the scribe of the acclaimed Dirty Havana Trilogy, reimagines Graham Greene as a hedonistic traveller, seeking thrills in the hands of enormously-endowed transvestites before inadvertently getting mixed up in the slaying of a mysterious German. But all is very much not as it seems with another GG (the real one?) finding himself en route to the Cuban capital and plunged into the murky depths of a curious saga involving FBI agents, Latino Nazi hunters and an enigma entitled The Magician.

A pleasant enough diversion, Our GG in Havana’s major triumph probably lies in giving the reader a kick-start in seeking out the rather more complex psychological worlds created by the novel’s central character.