The Havana Room is the tale of a man from his fall from the heights of power and wealth in New York to the moment where he might well die. Bill Wyeth is a successful real-estate attorney in his late thirties with a wife and son, who, by the merest chance, loses everything: family, job, status. Unmoored and alone, Wyeth drifts toward the city's darker corners. Restoration seems unlikely, redemption impossible, when Wyeth finds himself in an old-time Manhattan steakhouse. He is intrigued by the manager, Allison Sparks--sexy, complicated, and independent in all ways. She also controls access to the restaurant's private bar. This is the Havana Room, and what goes on in there, he's told, is secret. Wyeth agrees to help Alison's friend, Jay Rainey, in concluding a last-minute midnight real-estate transaction. As soon as he sees the players and the paperwork, Wyeth knows something is wrong. Within hours, Wyeth finds himself tangled in Rainey's peculiar obsessions, which involve a Chilean businessman who feels he's been swindled, an old farmer frozen dead to a bulldozer, an outrageous black owner of a downtown hiphop club, and a fourteen-year-old English girl. Only Rainey knows the connections among these people, which are revealed when Wyeth is finally admitted to the Havana Room--where the survival of its inhabitants is most uncertain. Harrison won legions of fans with his previous novels Afterburn (2000) and Manhattan Nocturne (1997), and his new novel promises not to disappoint. The suspenseful plot, film noir atmosphere, and unique details like hallucinogenic sushi will keep readers actively engaged. What's more, in Bill Wyeth, Harrison has created a character with a lot to lose--his family, career, and sanity, for starters--and his plight provides an emotional backdrop to the chases and killings. A few naysayers found that the thrill wore off, that Harrison displayed a tendency to overwrite, and that he sometimes stretched the limits of plausibility. For the most part, however, critics were drawn into both the internal and external drama of Wyeth's life, and cheered him on his search for redemption. Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. Harrison's latest intelligent thriller does not offer quite as compelling a plot as his last one, the acclaimed Afterburn (1999); however, his businessman-turned-desperado characters are never less than riveting, bringing us an up-to-date bulletin straight from the heart of a battered New York City. Corporate lawyer Bill Wyeth is jettisoned from his pampered upper-middle-class lifestyle by a tragic accident. Arriving home unexpectedly, he gives his son's sleepy guest a glass of milk inadvertently laced with peanut sauce. The boy, severely allergic, goes into shock and dies. The boy's wealthy, grieving father engineers Bill's destruction, and he loses his job, home, and family. Desperate for some kind of structure, Bill becomes a regular at a long-established steakhouse, entering the orbit of beautiful and austere restaurant manager Allison Sparks. She gives him entree to the Havana Room, the scene of backroom deals and strange goings-on, and introduces him to Jay Rainey, a hugely charismatic and secretive businessman who draws Bill into a dangerous venture. Suddenly, both men are being stalked by hip-hop-loving thugs and a cultured but equally ruthless entrepreneur. The complex plot, however, merely seems like the framework for Harrison's ultra-modern morality tale about the costs of self-preservation and the deep pressures of being human. Joanne Wilkinson Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "A gripping thriller by a master storyteller, tautly written, and ingeniously plotted. The Havana Room has the raw, scathing commentary of The Bonfire of the Vanities and the pacing of The Firm all rolled into one terrific read. This is Colin Harrison's best book yet." --Vince Flynn, author of Executive Power Colin Harrison is the author of, most recently, Afterburn (FSG, 2000). He lives in Brooklyn, New York. Excerpt from The Havana Room by Colin Harrison. Copyright © 2004 by Colin Harrison. To be published in January, 2004 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC. All rights reserved. One: Begin on the night that my old life ended. Begin on a warm April evening with a rumpled thirty-nine-year-old man stepping out of his cab at Park Avenue and Seventy-seventh. Manhattan steams and rumbles around him. He needs food, he wants sex, he must have sleep, and he'd prefer them in that order. The cab speeds off. The time is 1 a.m., and he looks up at his apartment building with a heavy, encyclopedic exhalation, which in its lung depth and audible huh can be found his whole life-wish and dream, sadness and joy, victory and loss. Yes, his whole life swirls in that one wet breath-as it does in everyone's. The idea was for him to get home in time for his son's birthday party, as a surprise. Even his wife isn't expecting him. But his plane was