For a growing number of British holidaymakers, Cuba is a Caribbean paradise, but it is also a land of cutbacks and economic instability. Author Smith went to live on the island, his search for the real Cuba becoming, inevitably, a search for Fidel Castro. Before meeting his quarry, Smith travelled extensively through the land of miracles in an old American car. His account features a bloody initiation into a voodoo-like cult, dining on giant rat, and checking into the Love Hotel. He also describes going on manoeuvres in the Everglades with armed, but not especially competent, Cuban exiles dreaming of a second Bay of Pigs. He investigates a country where communism and voodoo co-exist, and where the influence of its leader of 40 years continues to throw a long shadow.