In this early Lawrence Block thriller five characters are thrown together in a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro. Interwoven in the assassination story is the story/biography of how Fidel comes to power in Cuba. Written in 1961 shortly before the Cuban Missile crisis Block captures the time period and doesn't shy away from pulpy language.
I don't think anything I can write will be as compelling as this from one of the five, a murderer named Turner.
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Twenty thousand dollars and they were giving it to him.
He lit another cigarette. It wasn’t that simple, he thought. First he had to commit a murder. One murder to make up for the other murders, one planned killing to get him out of the jam that a double unplanned killing had placed him in. Only there was a difference, because that double murder had involved people who didn’t matter. A cheap waterfront slut and a fat, dark dock-walloper. No one important.
This planned murder, this twenty-grand homicide, this was different. He wasn’t going to knock off just anyone.
He was going to murder Fidel Castro.
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