NOVEMBER 2017 - AudioFile
Nelson DeMille has mastered nutrition-free fiction, and this title is another audio confection to enjoy while your mind is partly otherwise-occupied. Narrator Scott Brick is a great choice for this audiobook—the wise-guy edge to his voice matches the attitude of Mac, the main protagonist. The second protagonist is Sara, and, of course, she’s beautiful, and, of course, she and Mac get together, and, of course, there’s danger and a bit of sex. As Mac and Sara try to spirit 60 million dollars out of Cuba in Mac’s boat, it’s not particularly believable—but so what? The portrayal of Cuba is largely negative and simplistic, but the book, overall, is a harmless diversion. G.S.D. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly - Audio
★ 10/30/2017
DeMille’s new hard-bitten hero, Daniel “Mac” McCormick, narrates this breathless adventure set in 2015, when Mac was crippled by debt and working as the captain of a Key West deep-sea fishing charter boat. An ex-Army man with medals and scars from two tours in Afghanistan, Mac is tough, cynical, smart, and suffering from malaise, an attitude mix that reader Brick smoothly conveys from the start. Mac lets Miami lawyer Carlos Macia talk him into participating in a complicated plan to smuggle millions of dollars out of Cuba, with the promise of a hefty paycheck at the end. The caper is chancy, and adding to its potential perils is his smuggling companion, Sara Ortega, a mysterious beauty who may have a secret agenda. In presenting the plot’s set-up, reader Brick takes time to establish Mac’s hard-boiled outlook; his fondness for his cantankerous septuagenarian first mate, Jack Colby; and his increasing skepticism about the caper, especially Sara’s participation. Once their plane touches down in Havana and the plan immediately begins to unravel, Mac displays his Army-nurtured aptitude for improvisation and author and reader together establish the kind of feverish, nonstop action one expects from a world-class thriller. A Simon & Schuster hardcover. (Sept.)
Publishers Weekly
★ 07/03/2017
Set in 2015 during the early days of the thaw between the U.S. and Cuba, this action-packed, relentlessly paced thriller from bestseller DeMille (The Quest) introduces Daniel “Mac” MacCormick, a 35-year-old army veteran wounded in Afghanistan and now living in Key West, Fla., as a charter boat captain. Crippled by debt—he has a $250,000 bank loan on his boat—and feeling existentially adrift, Mac agrees to participate in a covert mission to Cuba for a substantial sum. Financed by a faction of Cuban-Americans bent on freeing their ancestral home from Castro’s oppression and returning millions of dollars and property to their rightful owners, the job entails accompanying a beautiful woman to Havana and recovering a cache of money and documents hidden in a cave. But the plan is risky at best, and soon Mac is on the run with a woman who could be manipulating him. A line from the novel perfectly describes this page-turner: “Sex, money, and adventure. Does it get any better than that?” Agents: Jenn Joel and Sloan Harris, ICM Partners. (Sept.)
From the Publisher
PRAISE FOR THE CUBAN AFFAIR BY NELSON DEMILLE:
“[An] action-packed, relentlessly paced thriller... A line from the novel perfectly describes this page-turner: ‘Sex, money, and adventure. Does it get any better than that?’”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“DeMille's latest is a timely stay-up-all-night, nail-biting page-turner featuring his iconic tongue-in-cheek, articulate, rhythmic narrative. His affably irreverent protagonist, fantastic believable supporting characters, and tense, realistic Cuba-set scenes including some jaw-dropping revelations make this a must-read for his many fans.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“The Cuban Affair feels authentic and real, and it provides knuckle-white tension mixed in with levity."
—Associated Press
"The opening of The Cuban Affair is dynamite—crisp, funny and dramatic—and the climactic conclusion is masterful action writing, fast, precise and genuinely gripping."
—Newsday
"This is powerful, mythic stuff, like Confederate gold and Nazi treasure...As the true nature of the charter-boat owner’s job becomes clear and the betrayals begin, DeMille mounts a long, magnificent sequence with boat chases, helicopter rescues, and tracer fire. They’re all described in that visceral style the author has mastered."
—Booklist
"This book has that incredible wit that Nelson DeMille has, and nobody writes characters like Nelson does."
—Tampa Bay Times
“Nelson DeMille has outdone himself. I thought that Plum Island was one of my favorite thrillers of all time, but I was wrong—DeMille is always going up a gear and The Cuban Affair is going to be one of the top ten thrillers of the year.”
—Strand Magazine
"DeMille’s known for penning hot thrillers (Plum Island, Night Fall), and this one—his 20th—doesn’t disappoint...DeMille keeps it fast-paced, with fascinating details about contemporary Cuba."
—AARP
“With his latest, The Cuban Affair, DeMille cements his reputation as an author of compelling, finely crafted and at times, humorous standalone thrillers. he Cuban Affair bursts with DeMille’s signature authenticity—a byproduct of DeMille’s passion for research.”
—The Big Thrill
"Ambitious...a masterpiece of both form and function. Storytelling at its very best."
—BookTrib
“The Cuban Affair offers romance, adventure and an astute and amusing look at today’s Cuban communist police state."
—Washington Times
"Bestseller Nelson DeMille’s reputation precedes him, and his new novel delivers...This one will keep you on the edge of your seat."
—Bookish.com
"With his signature humor and heart-pounding pace, DeMille does not disappoint in this brilliantly written novel."
—Atlanta Jewish Times
“The thriller charts a satisfying course. A good day's work from an old pro.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Library Journal
★ 08/01/2017
Key West charter fishing boat skipper Daniel (Mac) MacCormick is approached by three Cuban Americans who want his help extracting $60 million stashed in a Cuban cave since 1959. The trio have their Cuban and American contacts ready, dates picked out, and a harebrained proposition ready for Mac. It seems they need his brawn, his brains, and his boat to get the money to the United States. Mac's not a stranger to danger, having served in Afghanistan, but he's also not stupid and about to run screaming no when they offer him a cool $3 million for his assistance. VERDICT DeMille's (Radiant Angel) latest is a timely stay-up-all-night, nail-biting page-turner featuring his iconic tongue-in-cheek, articulate, rhythmic narrative. His affably irreverent protagonist, fantastic believable supporting characters, and tense, realistic Cuba-set scenes including some jaw-dropping revelations make this a must-read for his many fans. [See Prepub Alert, 4/24/17.]—Debbie Haupt, St. Charles City-Cty. Lib. Dist., St. Peters, MO
NOVEMBER 2017 - AudioFile
Nelson DeMille has mastered nutrition-free fiction, and this title is another audio confection to enjoy while your mind is partly otherwise-occupied. Narrator Scott Brick is a great choice for this audiobook—the wise-guy edge to his voice matches the attitude of Mac, the main protagonist. The second protagonist is Sara, and, of course, she’s beautiful, and, of course, she and Mac get together, and, of course, there’s danger and a bit of sex. As Mac and Sara try to spirit 60 million dollars out of Cuba in Mac’s boat, it’s not particularly believable—but so what? The portrayal of Cuba is largely negative and simplistic, but the book, overall, is a harmless diversion. G.S.D. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2017-07-17
Old bones and old grudges in contemporary Havana.In this, his 20th, DeMille (Radiant Angel, 2015, etc.) deftly drops Daniel "Mac" MacCormick, captain of The Maine, a 42-foot sport fisherman out of Key West, into a storm of competing visions of Cuba's future. When a trio of Cubans and Cuban-Americans, Carlos Macia, Eduardo Valazquez, and the lovely Sara Ortega, offer him a small fortune to participate in a scheme to recover documents and cash hidden in a cave during the Cuban Revolution of 1959, Mac is tempted and succumbs to both avarice and lust for Sara. The plan is to infiltrate Mac and Sara into Cuba as part of an educational tour under the auspices of Yale University (and some fun is had at the expense of the Elis). The two will break away from the tour, recover the money and documents, meet The Maine, which will be participating in a fishing tournament down the coast, and escape. Relations with Cuba are in flux; the exile community rejects the notion of a "Cuban Thaw," and the security services in Cuba also resist the idea. But some in the U.S. promote a lessening of tensions, and some in Cuba itself understand that the nation cannot survive without a quick infusion of money and that the best hope is U.S. tourist dollars. The real poverty of Cuba is clearly described, as are the conditions of the infrastructure and the social climate. In spots the narrative seems to slog through discursive observations, but they are mostly informative and worthwhile, and then the plot picks up energy again. Though Mac and his mate Jack Colby seem to share a somewhat adolescent obsession with "getting laid," they are stout fellows in a fight, and the thriller charts a satisfying course. A good day's work from an old pro.