cover image Sins of the Fathers

Sins of the Fathers

John Blackthorn. William Morrow & Company, $25 (384pp) ISBN 978-0-688-16191-0

""Cuba seems to have the same effect on American administrations that the full moon used to have on werewolves."" Such sharp observations lift the pseudonymous Blackthorn's taut and moody debut, in which a long-buried leftover from the Cuban missile crisis threatens the 40th anniversary of Castro's revolution, to a high level. The sons of a legendary CIA agent and a bitter Russian general stand at the heart of this gripping post-Cold War thriller. The Russian son, Viktor Isakov, is selling two tactical nuclear weapons (hidden in Cuba by his father in 1962) to a Cuban exile group called Bravo 99, which plans to blow up Castro, and most of Havana, during its January 1, 1999, anniversary celebration. The American son, a 36-year-old professor named McLemore, is in Cuba to research what really went on during the missile crisis. Despite his family history (his father was shot as a spy while the crisis was at its height), McLemore considers himself above politics. But in Blackthorn's Cuba, everything is political--which is why, when McLemore discovers the existence of the hidden nukes, and both the CIA and the Cuban Security Police want to enlist his help in stopping the Bravo group, he has an irrevocable choice to make. Blackthorn (a ""world-renowned American political figure"") writes in a terse, authoritative style, creating a strong sense of Cuba and its crucial place in the American political consciousness. His assured debut reads like the work of someone who's been perusing this terrain for years. Audio rights to Soundelux. (Jan.)