Adios Muchachos

By Daniel Chavarría

"Daniel Chavarr a has long been recognized as one of Latin America's finest writers. Now he again proves why with Adios Muchachos, a comic mystery peopled by a delightfully mad band of miscreants, all of them led by a woman you will not soon forget--Alicia, the loveliest bicycle whore in all Havana." --Edgar Award-winning author William Heffernan

"Celebrated in Latin America for his noir detective fiction, Uruguayan author Chavarr a makes his English-language debut with this fast-paced novel, set in Cuba. Featuring Alicia, a bicycle-riding prostitute, and Victor, a Canadian financier with a shady past and a few current secrets, Adios Muchachos spins the tale of a caper gone awry, where no one is particularly bad and everyone is on the take. Castro's Havana has not appeared this sunny in many years, nor have its crooks been this good-natured. There is an accidentally dead Dutch millionaire, a man with a nose so large that he wears a mask to hide it when he makes love, a recipe for smoked eels in mango sauce, and a defective Chinese bicycle. Mixed together, these ingredients make a zesty Cuban paella of a novel that's impossible to put down. This is a great read, recommended for public libraries." --Library Journal

The first suspense novel in English-translation by internationally acclaimed Uruguayan mystery writer Daniel Chavarr a, Adios Muchachos is a dark, erotic, brutally funny romp through the sexual underworld and black-market boardrooms of post-Cold War Cuba. Seen through Chavarr a's compassionate but uncompromising eyes, present-day Havana is a crossroads for petty hustlers looking for an easy mark, two-time losers looking for a fresh start, and high-rolling international speculators looking to take advantage of them all.

The novel describes the ill-fated alliance between Alicia, a stunningly beautiful prostitute who openly displays her voluptuous wares by bicycle on the city streets, and Victor King, a desperately ambitious Canadian businessman with an enormous appetite for kinky sex and buried treasure--and a striking resemblance to movie star Mel Gibson.

Following an early erotic entanglement of their own, Victor hires Alicia to lure a series of handsome lovers into the bedroom of his estate for the voyeuristic gratification of his mysterious wife, Elizabeth, who watches the action with her husband through a two-way mirror. After a sultry drunken dance results in the accidental death of Victor's wealthy Dutch business partner, Rieks Groote, Victor sees his ambitions for wealth suddenly go up in smoke and Alicia faces the end to her dreams of escaping her dreary, dead-end life on the island.

Hustlers all the way, the two quickly decide to turn disaster into opportunity, hiding the body in a freezer and hatching an elaborate kidnapping scheme that will allow them to steal millions of dollars from the Groote family and start a new life together off the island. Through a series of startling plot twists and slapstick misadventures, Victor and Alicia find themselves unwittingly manipulated and ultimately outmaneuvered by a sympathetic fellow hustler. In the end, everything revolves around the secret ingredient to an old family recipe and a long-overdue nose job--as only one of the novel's characters is able to make off with the loot and bid "adios" to Cuba and the past.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0096EO5Z2
• ISBN13: 9781888451160
• Release Date: May 2001
• Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd.
• Length: 250 Pages
• Weight: 0.72 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 4.5" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

A definite winner

It seems like every year the Edgar committees nominate one book that is so unusual that it stands out amongst the usual fare. Sometimes these books are excellent and would otherwise have remained undiscovered. For example, immediately comes to mind OUTCAST by Jose Latour, which was first published in English by the same publisher as this book. ADIOS MUCHACHOS is a black comedy that also could be considered a noir fiction. Characters are quite wacky and the plot extremely clever. In Havana, Cuba, Alicia literally pedals her wares as a bicycle hooker. However, she isn?t simply out for money. She views each ?client? as a prospective ticket out of her poverty-laden life via marriage or a long-term commitment. With the help of her pragmatic mother, Margarita, she seduces her johns with food and drink prior to their sampling of her sexual wares. Into this set up wanders her latest john, Victor King. Victor is involved in hunting for treasures on shipwrecks around the island. The people backing him are extremely wealthy. At first Victor uses Alicia for his own purposes. Later he proposes using her for his plan entailing voyeurism. However, a very unfortunate accident might possibly, with a bit of scheming, leave Alicia and Victor extremely wealthy. The question is, can they pull it off by outwitting the wealthy backers? The rampant descriptions of blatant sex would preclude placing this book among the ranks of the cozies. For those who enjoy hard edged humor, this book will very well fit the bill. The characters, all despicable creations are a pure delight. In spite of their immorality, the reader will find them quite sympathetic. Interest never wanes as the reader roots for Victor and Alicia to succeed in their deception. The book never tries to be a social commentary in that the living conditions in Havana never plays a central role. ADIOS MUCHACHOS is a definite winner and is my pick as the best of the paperback original nominees. However, I really don?t think it will win in that it is too unconventional.

Doing the Horizontal Rhumba, or Dutch Treat

Usually, a novel that splits right down the middle -- like a house divided against itself -- cannot stand. This one manages to, just barely. The first half is a raunchy romp with a Havana prostitute named Alicia, who manages to fall off her bicycle in an interesting way, and who strives to "trade up" toward a higher class of client. When she tangles with a shady international entrepreneur named Victor King, she finds her match until ...Well, I shouldn't say what happens midway through the book, if only because it is so surprising and outlandish that it should be experienced without any lead-in. Suffice it to say that, quite suddenly, one finds oneself in a standard crime caper novel of the shaggy dog variety. The author's style metamorphoses into another genre, and the lovely Alicia is relegated to a subordinate role.Only the ironic ending keeps me from downgrading the book to three stars. Daniel Chavarria obviously has talent as a writer, and has some of the juiciest sex scenes in recent literature, but he is no master of the genre. Paco Taibo, whose praise appears on the back, stands head and shoulders above him with his Hector Belascoaran Shayne novels. Yet I suspect that Chavarria is still young and has room to grow, and I look forward to reading his other works.

If you are thinking about it, do it.

I'm only 1/3 of the way through this but already I know that I'll be buying this for lots of friends. Simply outstanding. There are no great shakes here but as a book to simply amuse and enjoy it can't be beat. Adios Muchachos is so well writen that I have lost all desire to look for deep meaning. It's that rare book that can be simply enjoyed just for the craft that is displayed. Lots of laughs everywhere and quite informative if I'm ever looking for a hooker in Havana. ;-)I'm looking forward to trying something else from Daniel Chavarria and I feel very sorry for all the folks who gave this book only 1 or 2 stars. I suspect they were offended by some of the setting.

Sexy + Fun

Daniel Chavarria's Adios Muchachos is a fun little book exploring the world of prostitutes, unseemly businessmen and death in post-revolutionary Cuba. Uruguayan Daniel Chavarria seems mostly known for more literary work, but according to the bio on the inside flap he is said to have two passions: "classical literature and whores". Well, it shows. Chavarria's main protagonist is Alicia, a high class prostitute who gets wealthy foreigners to buy her beautiful, expensive things so that she and her mother (a pre-revolutionary Cuban socialite) don't have to deal with the infirmities of life in Castro's Cuba. Alicia has an elaborate scam involving a bicycle accident that she works, along with her body, into an act of perfection. The precision timing is hilarious, as is the strategy her mother and her have worked out to squeeze the maximum sympathy out of their clueless (yet sexually aroused) victims. The crux of the story happens when Alicia's latest conquest, Victor, is not who he seems. Death and mayhem ensue. The subject matter could easily be salacious, but Chavarria has a neat trick of using beautiful prose to describe people doing less-than-beautiful thing. He has a writing style that is simultaneously sophisticated, but not elitist. He's just telling a good story, and doing it in the best way possible.

Exquisite

Of course it's pulp fiction. The huge majority of books published today are pulp fiction. And so what? The difference is that Adios Muchachos is WELL WRITTEN pulp fiction. I roared with laughter at the descriptions and at the nonesensical plot, and any book that can make me laugh is worth a good few stars.Congratulations to Daniel Chavarria for writing a picaresque novel about a young lady whose aim in life is to please (in return for certain favours) without falling into the trap of writing pure pornography. I enjoyed the book, not only for the plot, but for the beauty of what was on the page. Chavarria covers many a 'sensitive' topic with a nod and a wink and a sentence structured in erotic innuendo. Brilliant.