The author of this book (a distant relative of my husband) is the son of a British father and a Cuban mother and, after listening to his mother's wistful stories about Cuba in the pre-Castro days, developed his own nostalgia for the island despite never having been there. His mother was friends with the youngest daughter of Julio Lobo, the "Sugar King of Havana" who at one time controlled the trade in sugar from Cuba and became one of the richest men in that country.

The book tells of Lobo's rise from his childhood at the time of the Spanish-American War through his the building of his empire in the 1930's and 1940's to the inevitable fall after FIdel Castro came to power in 1959. Along the way he paints a vivid portrait of a country and a way of life that is long gone and now only seen in history books and depictions in the movies.

At times, the book got way too detailed about the machinations of Lobo's speculative deals, but Rathbone's vivid portrait of Cuba in the "old days" more than made up for that failing. ( )