Santo Domingo Stakeout — John Keyse-Walker

It's 1965, and cynical former private investigator Henry Gore just wants to drink his days away in corrupt, sun-soaked Santo Domingo - but life has other ideas in this novel of pitch-black noir, the sequel to the savage, gut-punch of a crime thriller, Havana Highwire.

Thirty-five-year-old American expat Henry Gore used to be a private investigator, scratching a living in balmy, rum-soaked Havana. He might not have been someone, but he was something.

Now, exiled from Cuba and with a target on his back, he's nothing but a washed-up drifter, spending his days drinking with gringos he despises and his nights with women he doesn't love.

But one day he chooses the wrong bar to drink in - or maybe the wrong friends. Henry wakes up in hospital to find that someone blew up the building, and he's seemingly the sole survivor.

Who set the bomb, and why? Henry's certain that whatever the answer, he's better off not knowing. But with the police on his tail, Henry - aided by a beautiful dame from the US embassy he's not sure he can trust - reluctantly investigates, soon finding himself up to his neck in corruption, revolution . . . and deadly conspiracy.

Dark humor, dark secrets and even darker crimes . . . Santo Domingo Stakeout is crime noir at its finest, and will appeal to fans of classic noir by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, along with modern masters like James Ellroy and Walter Mosley.