Publisher's Synopsis
A gripping novel of a doomed attempt to retake Cuba, written in the tradition of Ernest Hemingway, Graham Greene, and Robert Stone. War-weary and emotionally shattered after years of shadowy Company existence in Beirut, Belize, and El Salvador, Jorge Ortega finds himself installed as the expendable americano leader of a small guerrilla band of Cuban revolutionaries in the months after Fidel Castro's death. Eager to avenge his grandfather's demise during the Bay of Pigs invasion, Ortega is sent to lead a fragmented group of men and women whose uncertain allegiances seem to hex the mission --the seizure of a Cuban radio station --before it can even begin. More ill omens soon surface. Forbes, Ortega's Agency superior, has guaranteed to support the offensive with a massive landing that Ortega begins to doubt will occur. Meanwhile, Ortega's affair with Gloria, the beautiful but disfigured girlfriend of one of the soldiers whose trust he desperately needs, churns up stark memories of a death for which Ortega cannot forgive himself. Rich with astonishing verisimilitude, unbearable narrative tension, and pinpoint moral focus, James Coltrane's A Good Day to Die is a remarkable novel --a Nostromo for our time.
