PositiveBook ForumPadura’s most explicitly political work to date, the novel recounts the assassination of Leon Trotsky, exposing the high crimes of Stalinism and the dismal, repressed lives of Padura’s own Cuban generation ... The Man Who Loved Dogs is a more ambitious effort, but it’s still a yarn, weaving together three distinct narratives, each told in a different style ... A novel with this much going on risks inconsistency, and Padura’s Trotsky sections are a slog. The result of deep research, these parts are overstuffed with names and events, gummed up by impenetrable historical context, and too cautious in their portrait of the man himself ... The novel’s two other narrative threads have far more brio. Mercader’s story, which gives us a portrait of Trotsky’s assassin as a young man and is also based firmly in history, practically explodes off the page ... Mercader’s story is vigorous historical fiction, but the book’s soul lies firmly in the Cuban sections, primarily set in Havana during the Gray Years of 1970s ... Padura hits his Chandler-esque register of pulp poetry. He’s plainly at home in Iván’s voice. The writing is noirish without falling into parody and elusive enough to maintain a lasting sense of mystery.
