{"product_id":"dancing-to-almendra-book-mayra-montero-9780330449328","title":"Dancing to 'Almendra'","description":"Havana, 1957.   On the same day that the Mafia capo Umberto Anastasia is assassinated in a barber’s chair in New York, a hippopotamus escapes from the zoo and is shot and killed by its pursuers. Assigned to cover the zoo story, Joaquín Porrata, a young Cuban journalist, finds himself embroiled in the mysterious connections between the hippo’s death and the mobster’s when a secretive zookeeper whispers to him that he `knows too much’. In exchange for a promise to introduce the keeper to his idol, the film star George Raft, now the host of the Capri casino, Joaquín gets information that ensnares him in an ever-thickening plot of murder, mobsters, and, finally, love.   The love story is another mystery. Told by Yolanda, a beautiful ex-circus performer now working for the famed Sans Souci cabaret, it interleaves through Joaquín’s underworld investigations, eventually revealing a family secret deeper even than Havana’s brilliantly evoked enigmas.   In Dancing to `Almendra’, Mayra Montero has created an ardent and thrilling tale of innocence lost, of Havana’s secret world that is `the basis for the clamor of the city’, and of the end of a violent era of fantastic characters and extravagant crimes. Based on the true history of a bewitching city and its denizens, `Almendra’ is the latest triumph from one of Latin America’s most impassioned and intoxicating voices.   Praise for Mayra Montero's previous novels:   'A literary tour de force . . . A tale of unforgettable beauty' Los Angeles Times on The Messenger   'A dazzling, original fugue on love and extinction' New Yorker on  The Palm of Darkness","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49633599619345,"sku":"GOR012715226","price":6.5,"currency_code":"CHF","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51411475202321,"sku":"GOR004521965","price":12.5,"currency_code":"CHF","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/033044932X.jpg?v=1750877241","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/de-ch\/products\/dancing-to-almendra-buch-mayra-montero-9780330449328","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}