Description
Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE CRIME WRITERS'' ASSOCIATION GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION 2017
''In its tragic absurdity, Close But No Cigar reads like a Graham Greene story, with a cast of characters to make Hemingway proud'' Daily Telegraph
For over a decade Stephen Purvis had been a pillar of Havana''s expat community, one of many foreign businessmen investing in Cuba''s crawl from Cold War communism towards modernity. But for reasons unknown to him he was also under State Security''s microscope. One morning during the height of President Raúl Castro''s purges in 2012, while his family slept, the unmarked Ladas of State Security arrived at his home and he was taken away into the absurd and brutal world of Cuban justice.
In this engrossing memoir, Purvis recounts his fifteen-month ordeal. Accused at first of selling state secrets, he is taken to the notorious interrogation centre Villa Marista, where he endures brutal conditions designed by the KGB and
Trade Review
The Cuban conundrum is that little is what it seems ... In its tragic absurdity, Close but No Cigar reads like a Graham Greene story, with a cast of characters to make Hemingway proud ... his tale should be read by anyone who wants to understand what lies beyond the beaches and Bacardi -- Harriet Alexander * DAILY TELEGRAPH *
An utterly mesmerising, sometimes grimly funny account of a year spent in a Cuban prison on trumped-up charges. Stephen Purvis has the gift of unshakeably transfixing the reader -- Barry Forshaw * Crime Time *
This is a book worth reading by all those who ever thought Fidel Castro's regime was a kindly form of socialism ... Purvis has written a gripping and sardonic description of a corrupt and dictatorial country behind the tourist facade * Catholic Herald *
[Purvis's] diaries will chill your blood * Mail on Sunday *
Powerful * Observer *
