"In 1997, a series of bombs rocked Havana—a city already deep in an economic and spiritual depression. In Havana Libre, the anxiety of the time is palpable. Robert Arellano gives us a detailed and precise portrait of one of the most surreal places on earth. A mystery with alluring twists and turns, Havana Libre also poses a deeper question: how does one contend with the anguish of loving a place that can never, ever love you back? Compelling and restrained, this is Arellano's best to date."—Achy Obejas, author of The Tower of the AntillesPraise for the previous works of Robert Arellano:"Written with passion and vision and with a clear, unflinching eye, Havana Lunar breaks new ground. In it the Cuban underworld of chulos and jineteras is revealed and the überworld of political bosses and apparatchiks unmasked. I am certain that Havana Lunar will find a wide and enthusiastic readership."—Pablo...

Fiction. You're walking along the road in La Plata when the fog rolls in. Giant billboards hulk close above while the lights of the city are blotted out one by one. A black limo with the #1 license plate pulls up out of the pea soup and the driver, a goon in a trooper uniform, says, "Get een." The back door opens and there he is, all sharkskin suit and slick toupee, kicked back on the leather seat and grinning in a horizontal mirror: Mayor Donald "Pally" Dimaio. High up in the mist you hear an ape-like shriek: Ook ook ai ai ai! The engine is running. "Well, buddy," says Mayor Dimaio, holding out a rolled-up hundred. "You want some of this?" Take a bribe and ride with La Plata's favorite rogue politico through a tripped-out town of strip clubs and drug dens where the heirs of Abraham Beige, original pilgrim, rub shoulders with gun-waving goodfellas who steal their lines from `90s gangster flicks. Robert Arellano taught creative writing at Brown University and is the author of FAST EDDIE, KING OF THE BEES, which is also available from SPD.**

"In this unsettling mix of noir and paranormal obsession . . . Arellano displays a sly, Hitchcockian touch."--Publishers Weekly"Arellano pulls off the not-inconsiderable feat of making the disintegration of his hero more compelling than the end of the world as we know it."--Kirkus Reviews". . . [N]othing in New Mexico has ever been more secret than Los Alamos, the Atomic City, where a diverse group of geniuses built the first atomic bombs and changed the face of the world forever. That’s the setting and premise for this excellent novel by Cuban-American Robert Arellano. Disaster is about to happen and one man can avert it . . . maybe."--Globe and Mail (Canada)"Arellano's taut prose [is] a trip into the mind of a man on the edge of delirium, piecing together a puzzle at the expense of his marriage and his sanity."--AARP"Arellano writes with pure movement and action . . . Curse the Names does exactly what Hitchcock and The Twilight Zone did so well. It takes the ordinary, the benign and relatable and turns it into a fast-paced romp with unexpected events and realizations at every turn. Don’t be surprised if you start this book and don’t look up again until you’re finished. Though its release has come at the doorstep of 2012, Arellano has definitely earned a late addition to my best books of 2011."--Ryan W. Bradley, *The Nervous Breakdown*"Readers, fasten your seat belts for this one. Arellano’s novel is a dizzying Thompsonian concoction of noir crime thriller and alternately nightmarish and comic surreal psychodrama, spiced up with a heaping handful of local northern New Mexico flavor."--Albuquerque Journal"The nightmare intensity to Arellano's prose gets under your skin. You won't want to turn the lights out after reading it."--Charles Ardai, Edgar Award winnerHigh on a mesa in the mountains of New Mexico, a small town hides a dreadful secret. On a morning very soon there will be an accident that triggers a terrible chain reaction, and the world we know will be wiped out.James Oberhelm, a reporter at Los Alamos National Laboratory, already sees the devastation, like the skin torn off a moment that is yet to be. He believes he can prevent an apocalypse, but first James must escape the devices of a sensuous young blood tech, a lecherous old hippie, a predator in a waking nightmare, and a forsaken adobe house high away in the Sangre de Cristo mountains whose dark history entwines them all.A massive bomb is ticking beneath the sands of the Southwest, and time is running out to send a warning. James has to find a way to pass along the message--even if it ruins him.Review"Dr. Mano Rodriguez is caught up in intrigue in this thoughtful, lushly detailed neo-noir . . . Much Spanish dialogue, with prompts in English on more difficult words, deepens the sense of locale." --Publishers Weekly on Havana Lunar"A sad, surreal, beautiful tour of the hell that was Cuba in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The writing is hypnotic, the storytelling superb. Havana Lunar is perfect." --Tim McLoughlin, author of Heart of the Old Country, editor of Brooklyn Noir on Havana Lunar"Arellano engages the reader immediately by quickly developing his characters into unique individuals, both good and bad . . . Havana Lunar is not bashful in its presentation of Cuba and its seamy side: Arellano is savvy and able to show caring families while also introducing the reader to the grittier side . . . The detail is impressive . . . Arellano is masterful, weaving both the physical and emotional into a story everyone can relate to in some way . . ." --Multicultural Review on Havana Lunar"Written with passion and vision and with a clear, unflinching eye, Robert Arellano's Havana Lunar breaks new ground. It is not a Cuban American novel but a Cuban novel written in English. In it the Cuban underworld of chulos and jineteras is revealed and the über-world of political bosses and apparatchiks unmasked. I am certain that Havana Lunar will find a wide and enthusiastic readership." --Pablo Medina, author of The Cigar Roller on Havana Lunar"A noir novel short enough to read on a two-hour airplane ride and sufficiently satisfying to make you feel glad you read it." --Albuquerque Journal on Havana LunarFrom the PublisherRobert Arellano, author of the Edgar-nominated crime novel Havana Lunar, returns with another spine-tingling noir from Akashic Books.

One hungry, hallucinatory night in the dark heart of Havana, a young doctor, Mano, comes to the aid of a teenage jinetera, Julia. She takes refuge in his clinic to break away from the abusive chulo who prostituted her, and they form an unlikely allegiance that Mano thinks might save him from his twin burdens: the dead-end hospital assignment he was delegated after being blacklisted by the Cuban Communist Party and a Palo Monte curse on his love life commissioned by a vengeful ex-wife. But when the pimp and his bodyguards come after Julia and Mano, the violent chain-reaction plunges them all into the decadent catacombs of Havana's criminal underworld.Inspired by fifty years of Cuban noir, from the Cold Tales of Pinera to Arenas' Before Night Falls, Arellano's Havana Lunar (a Shamus Award finalist) intertwines an insider testimony on the collapse of socialist Cuba with a psychological mystery that climaxes in the eye of Hurricane Andrew.