Havana Black

At the start of the well-plotted second volume of Padura's seething, steamy Havana Quartet , Cuban detective Mario Conde - aka "the Count" - is approaching the end of his police career and his 36th birthday with drunken abandon while also anticipating, almost welcoming, the arrival of a devastating hurricane. Fed up with the latest departmental purges, which have claimed his boss and mentor, Major Rangel, Conde resigns from the department only to be offered a challenge and a bargain by Rangel's newly appointed replacement.