"Padura’s Heretics spans and defies literary categories . . . ingenious." ―Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air
A sweeping novel of art theft, anti-Semitism, contemporary Cuba, and crime from a renowned Cuban author, Heretics is Leonardo Padura's greatest detective work yet.
In 1939, the Saint Louis sails from Hamburg into Havana’s port with hundreds of Jewish refugees seeking asylum from the Nazi regime. From the docks, nine-year-old Daniel Kaminsky watches as the passengers, including his mother, father, and sister, become embroiled in a fiasco of Cuban corruption. But the Kaminskys have a treasure that they hope will save them: a small Rembrandt portrait of Christ. Yet six days later the vessel is forced to leave the harbor with the family, bound for the horrors of Europe. The Kaminskys, along with their priceless heirloom, disappear.
 Nearly seven decades later, the Rembrandt reappears in an auction house in London, prompting Daniel’s son to travel to Cuba to track down the story of his family’s lost masterpiece. He hires the down-on-his-luck private detective Mario Conde, and together they navigate a web of deception and violence in the morally complex city of Havana. 
 In Heretics, Leonardo Padura takes us from the tenements and beaches of Cuba to Rembrandt’s gloomy studio in seventeenth-century Amsterdam, telling the story of people forced to choose between the tenets of their faith and the realities of the world, between their personal desires and the demands of their times. A grand detective story and a moving historical drama, Padura’s novel is as compelling, mysterious, and enduring as the painting at its center.

Heretics: A Novel (Mario Conde Investigates, 8)

Literature & Fiction

Padura, Léonardo

Literary

Farrar. Straus and Giroux

A gripping novel about the assassination of Leon Trotsky in Mexico City in 1940
In The Man Who Loved Dogs, Leonardo Padura brings a noir sensibility to one of the most fascinating and complex political narratives of the past hundred years: the assassination of Leon Trotsky by Ramón Mercader.
The story revolves around Iván Cárdenas Maturell, who in his youth was the great hope of modern Cuban literature―until he dared to write a story that was deemed counterrevolutionary. When we meet him years later in Havana, Iván is a loser: a humbled and defeated man with a quiet, unremarkable life who earns his modest living as a proofreader at a veterinary magazine. One afternoon, he meets a mysterious foreigner in the company of two Russian wolfhounds. This is "the man who loved dogs," and as the pair grow closer, Iván begins to understand that his new friend is hiding a terrible secret.
Moving seamlessly between Iván's life in Cuba, Ramón's early years in Spain and France, and Trotsky's long years of exile, The Man Who Loved Dogs is Padura's most ambitious and brilliantly executed novel yet. This is a story about political ideals tested and characters broken, a multilayered epic that effortlessly weaves together three different plot threads― Trotsky in exile, Ramón in pursuit, Iván in frustrated stasis―to bring emotional truth to historical fact.
A novel whose reach is matched only by its astonishing successes on the page, The Man Who Loved Dogs lays bare the human cost of abstract ideals and the insidious, corrosive effects of life under a repressive political regime.

The Man Who Loved Dogs: A Novel

From Leonardo Padura--whose crime novels featuring Detective Mario Conde form the basis of Netflix's Four Seasons in Havana--The Transparency of Time sees the Cuban investigator pursuing a mystery spanning centuries of occult history. Mario Conde is facing down his sixtieth birthday. What does he have to show for his decades on the planet? A failing body, a slower mind, and a decrepit country, in which both the ideals and failures of the Cuban Revolution are being swept away in favor of a new and newly cosmopolitan worship of money. Rescue comes in the form of a new case: an old Marxist turned flamboyant practitioner of Santería appears on the scene to engage Conde to track down a stolen statue of the Virgen de Regla--a black Madonna. This sets Conde on a quest that spans twenty-first century Havana as well as the distant past, as he delves as far back as the Crusades in an attempt to uncover the true provenance of the statue. Through vignettes from the life of a Catalan peasant named Antoni Barral, who appears throughout history in different guises--as a shepherd during the Spanish Civil War, as vassal to a feudal lord--we trace the Madonna to present-day Cuba. With Barral serving as Conde's alter ego, unstuck in time, and Conde serving as the author's, we are treated to a panorama of history, and reminded of the impossibility of ever remaining on its sidelines, no matter how obscure we may think our places in the action. Equal parts The Name of the Rose and The Maltese Falcon, The Transparency of Time cements Leonardo Padura's position as the preeminent literary crime writer of our time.

The Transparency of Time: A Novel (Mario Conde Investigates, 9)

A gripping novel about the assassination of Leon Trotsky in Mexico City in 1940
In The Man Who Loved Dogs, Leonardo Padura brings a noir sensibility to one of the most fascinating and complex political narratives of the past hundred years: the assassination of Leon Trotsky by Ramón Mercader.
The story revolves around Iván Cárdenas Maturell, who in his youth was the great hope of modern Cuban literature―until he dared to write a story that was deemed counterrevolutionary. When we meet him years later in Havana, Iván is a loser: a humbled and defeated man with a quiet, unremarkable life who earns his modest living as a proofreader at a veterinary magazine. One afternoon, he meets a mysterious foreigner in the company of two Russian wolfhounds. This is "the man who loved dogs," and as the pair grow closer, Iván begins to understand that his new friend is hiding a terrible secret. Moving seamlessly between Iván's life in Cuba, Ramón's early years in Spain and France, and Trotsky's long years of exile, The Man Who Loved Dogs is Padura's most ambitious and brilliantly executed novel yet. This is a story about political ideals tested and characters broken, a multilayered epic that effortlessly weaves together three different plot threads― Trotsky in exile, Ramón in pursuit, Iván in frustrated stasis―to bring emotional truth to historical fact. A novel whose reach is matched only by its astonishing successes on the page, The Man Who Loved Dogs lays bare the human cost of abstract ideals and the insidious, corrosive effects of life under a repressive political regime.

United States

From Leonardo Padura--whose crime novels featuring Detective Mario Conde form the basis of Netflix's Four Seasons in Havana--The Transparency of Time sees the Cuban investigator pursuing a mystery spanning centuries of occult history. Mario Conde is facing down his sixtieth birthday. What does he have to show for his decades on the planet? A failing body, a slower mind, and a decrepit country, in which both the ideals and failures of the Cuban Revolution are being swept away in favor of a new and newly cosmopolitan worship of money. Rescue comes in the form of a new case: an old Marxist turned flamboyant practitioner of Santería appears on the scene to engage Conde to track down a stolen statue of the Virgen de Regla--a black Madonna. This sets Conde on a quest that spans twenty-first century Havana as well as the distant past, as he delves as far back as the Crusades in an attempt to uncover the true provenance of the statue. Through vignettes from the life of a Catalan peasant named Antoni Barral, who appears throughout history in different guises--as a shepherd during the Spanish Civil War, as vassal to a feudal lord--we trace the Madonna to present-day Cuba. With Barral serving as Conde's alter ego, unstuck in time, and Conde serving as the author's, we are treated to a panorama of history, and reminded of the impossibility of ever remaining on its sidelines, no matter how obscure we may think our places in the action. Equal parts The Name of the Rose and The Maltese Falcon, The Transparency of Time cements Leonardo Padura's position as the preeminent literary crime writer of our time.

Transparency of Time (Mario Conde Investigates, 9)

Picador Paper

Colección de reportajes culturales, fruto de la colaboración del autor en el diario cubano Juventud Rebelde entre 1984 y 1990, en los que ya se puede apreciar el talento del escritor, hoy novelista reconocido internacionalmente. Este peculiar y

El viaje más largo (Colección Cultura cubana) (Spanish Edition)

Reference

Foreign Language Study & Reference

Editorial Plaza Mayor

“A magnificent novel. Haunted by the tragic story and passion of its characters.”—Magazine Littéraire
The first of the Havana quartet featuring Inspector Mario Conde, a tropical Marlowe. A young transvestite in a beautiful red dress is found strangled in a Havana park. Conde’s investigation into a violent murder exposes a stifling, corrupt society, a Cuban reality where nothing is what it seems. A dark and fascinating world of men and women born in the revolution who live without dreaming of exile and seek their identity in the midst of disaster.
Leonardo Padura lives in Cuba. He is a novelist, essayist, journalist and scriptwriter. Havana Red has won numerous literary prizes, including the Hammett prize in Spain.

Havana Red (Mario Conde Investigates)

Genre Fiction

Bitter Lemon Press

Praise for Havana Red, the first of the Lt. Conde series:
“Another winner from Bitter Lemon…an innovative take on the traditional detective story. A macho cop whose investigation into the murder of a transvestite leads him to ruminate on his own attraction to this ‘philosophy of mimetics and erasure.’"—The New York Times
“A scorching novel from a star of Cuban fiction. Conde’s quest follows the basic rhythm of the whodunit, but Padura syncopates it with brilliant literary riffs on Cuban sex, society, religion, even food.”—Independent
The brutally mutilated body of Miguel Forcade is discovered washed up on a Havana beach. Head smashed in by a baseball bat, genitals cut off by a dull knife. Forcade was once responsible for the confiscation of art works from the bourgeoisie fleeing the revolution. Had he really returned from exile just to visit his ailing father?
The novel evokes the disillusion of a generation, many of them veterans of the war in Angola, discovering the corruption of those who preceded them. Yet it is a eulogy of Cuba, its life of music, sex and the great friendships of the people who elected to stay and fight for survival.
Leonardo Padura was born in 1955 in Havana and lives in Cuba. He is a prize-winning novelist, essayist, journalist, and scriptwriter.

Havana Black: A Lieutenant Mario Conde Mystery (Mario Conde Investigates)

Praise for the Havana Quartet:
“Overlaid with a rich smoky patina, an atmosphere that reeks of slums and riches, cigar smoke and exotic perfumes. Havana Black is a strong tasting book, a rich feast of wit and feeling.”—The Independent
“Drenched with that beguiling otherness so appealing to fans of mysteries of other cultures, it will also appeal to those who appreciate the sultry lyricism of James Lee Burke.”—Booklist
“A great plot, perfectly executed with huge atmosphere. You can almost smell the cigar smoke, rum and cheap women.”—Daily Mirror
“Havana Red, another winner from Bitter Lemon Press.”—The New York Times
Lieutenant Mario Conde is suffering from a terrible New Year’s Eve hangover. Though it’s the middle of a weekend, he is asked to urgently investigate the mysterious disappearance of Rafael Morin, a high-level business manager in the Cuban nomenklatura. Conde remembered Morin from their student days: good-looking, brilliant, a “reliable comrade’’ who always got what he wanted, including Tamara, the girl Conde was after.
But Rafael Morin’s exemplary rise from a poor barrio and picture-perfect life hides more than one suspicious episode worthy of investigation. While pursuing the case in a decaying but adored Havana, Conde confronts his lost love for Tamara and the dreams and illusions of his generation.

Havana Blue (Mario Conde Investigates)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Padura, Léonardo. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Padura, Léonardo

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Padura, Léonardo. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Heretics: A Novel (Mario Conde Investigates, 8)

The Man Who Loved Dogs: A Novel

The Transparency of Time: A Novel (Mario Conde Investigates, 9)

The Man Who Loved Dogs: A Novel

Heretics: A Novel (Mario Conde Investigates, 8)

Transparency of Time (Mario Conde Investigates, 9)

El viaje más largo (Colección Cultura cubana) (Spanish Edition)

Havana Red (Mario Conde Investigates)

Havana Black: A Lieutenant Mario Conde Mystery (Mario Conde Investigates)

Havana Blue (Mario Conde Investigates)