Havana Bay

Martin Cruz Smith is a first timer for me and I did not realise that he had written Gorky Park which was made into a movie a few years ago. Arcady Renko is a humourless Russian investigator sent to Havana to investigate the death of another little known Russian spy in a water accident. The book begins very slowly and takes even more slowness to get into the characters of the plot. There are few police people and a Cuban female investigator Ofelia all of whom don't want to investigate the Russian's death. There is a liberal sprinkling of the mistrust between Cuba and Russia in the book a kind of Cuban hate of Russia for leaving them in a lurch and sort of leaving them as holding the last communist post in the world. The plot gets bogged down repeatedly in the Cuban Russian interplay of emotions which is not dispelled despite a few more murders taking place. Smith has done a good job in slowly unfolding the plot to its conclusion in the Havana Bay but I thought the ending was a bit too abrupt. He should have allowed the emotions between Arcady and Ofelia to be taken to a logical conclusion. This was supposedly Arcady's fourth book in the series, it would be interesting to read his earlier works on Arcady and also his later works. Goodreads 4/5

Live by Night

Live by Night is a 2016 drama film starring Ben Affleck, Sienna Miller, Zoe Saldana among others. It is a prohibition era movie when gangsters ruled the roost in American cities. Ben (Joseph) is a small time gangster just back from world war I duties but he runs into Robert White who is owning the Irish gang in Boston. Joseph falls into love with his daughter Sienna (Emma) but they fall out with each other and Joseph is in jail for a bank heist and murder of three policemen. Joseph comes out and straight way goes to the Italian boss Maso Pescotore out in Florida, where he establishes their side of operations with his friend Dion. Out there Joseph falls in love with the sister of the Cuban mafia, Joe Saldana and there are some steaming scenes between them. In the meantime, he is supported by the local sheriff but his daughter Loretta (Elle Fanning) who wants to become an actress in Hollywood, instead becomes a prostitute. The sheriff's brother in law meanwhile is a member of the KKK and he starts bombing various premises of Joseph. To extract revenge against the brother in law, Joseph produces some incriminating photographs of Loretta and asks for the head of the brother in law in return for giving details of the address of Loretta. Loretta comes out and promptly becomes a nun declaiming all the gambling activities in the Miami area including a gambling house which Joseph was planning on setting up. As expected things reach a head between the Irish gangs and the Italian gangs in the end. Of the acting only Sienna Miller is praiseworthy, Ben Affleck is wooden throughout the movie. Too much of sub plots in the movie. Overall rating 2/5