In previous novels, Simmons has cast John Keats as an intergalactic emissary (Hyperion) and Mark Twain as an occult adventurer (Fires in Eden). His new excursion in fictional literary biography--and first nonfantasy since Phases of Gravity (1989)--is a gutsy speculation on Ernest Hemingway's exploits in wartime espionage, much of it apparently based on fact. In 1942, Hemingway petitioned the American embassy for help in establishing a counterintelligence outfit he called "The Crook Factory," designed to investigate Nazi activity in his adopted home of Cuba. Joe Lucas, a dedicated if unimaginative young FBI agent, thinks he has been assigned to humor the well-connected writer but soon discovers that Hemingway and his crew of colorful sycophants have stumbled on a Nazi spy nest abuzz with activity. Someone is channeling information through the island's intelligence underground, all of it implicating a host of historical celebrities. The more deeply Hemingway's team probes, the more Lucas is persuaded that the Crook Factory has been deliberately set up as an expendable military subterfuge. As vividly depicted by Simmons, pre-Communist Cuba is an exotic locale whose volatile wartime intrigues are comparable to those of the cinematic Casablanca. It's the perfect milieu for Hemingway, whose larger-than-life evocation must be accounted one of Simmons's sterling literary achievements. The macho figure he cuts here is the stuff of countless Life magazine photos, and his development as Joe's friend and mentor is handled with intelligence and dignity. No one will mistake the novel's immersions in the numbing, repetitive detail of secret service operations for Papa's own concise prose. But the web of conspiracy Simmons spins, the zesty characters it entangles and its intricate cross-weave of fact and fiction distinguish this celebration of the Hemingway centenary. (Feb.)
The Crook Factory
Narrated by Patrick Lawlor
Dan SimmonsUnabridged — 20 hours, 46 minutes
The Crook Factory
Narrated by Patrick Lawlor
Dan SimmonsUnabridged — 20 hours, 46 minutes
Overview
At the height of World War II, the famous writer Ernest Hemingway sought permission from the U.S. government to operate a spy ring out of his house in the Cuban countryside. This much is true....
It is the summer of '42 and FBI agent Joe Lucas has come to Cuba at the behest of J. Edgar Hoover to keep an eye on Hemingway. The great writer has assembled a ragtag spy ring that he calls the “Crook Factory” to play a dangerous game of amateur espionage. But then Lucas and Hemingway, against all the odds, uncover a critical piece of intelligence-and the game turns deadly.
In The Crook Factory, award-winning author Dan Simmons expands a little-known fact into a tour de force of gripping historical suspense set in the sensual Cuban landscape of the early 1940s.
Editorial Reviews
This delightfully spry novel offers a fictionalized account of Ernest Hemingway, who during the 1930s set up a U.S. government-sanctioned intelligence network, a.k.a. the Crook Factory, in Cuba with a cadre of fishing buddies, waiters, prostitutes, and other unlikely operatives to apprehend Nazi infiltrators. Simmons (The Rise of Endymion, LJ 9/15/97) very cleverly takes one of the actual players, remembered only as Lucas, and morphs him into Joe Lucas, an FBI agent sent by J. Edgar Hoover to keep tabs on Ernesto. The plot quickly evolves into a real page-turning espionage story, complete with corrupt police officials, double agents, secret codes, and multiple murders. Without falling into hero worship, Simmons offers one of the best fictional portraits of Hemingway available. The writer is intelligent and tough but at the same time a hotheaded and reckless amateur. Though Hemingway is the hook, this would be an equally intriguing story without him. Fun reading for both Hemingway aficionados and spy novel enthusiasts. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/15/98.]--Michael Rogers, "Library Journal"
The Crook Factory is not your usual Dan Simmons-type novel...Dan Simmons has captured the atmosphere of the time perfectly...Within the brilliance of the writing, I had periodic flashes of those old black and white Bogie movies set in the 40s and 50s -- To Have and Have Not, Treasure of the Sierra Madre and despite its towering stature, Casablanca... If you're not a fan of Dan Simmons' startlingly inventive science fiction or his grisly, arresting dark fantasy, you should give The Crook Factory a read.
— SF Site
From CNN.com
(CNN) - "The Crook Factory" is a World War II espionage story of unique proportions. Set in Cuba, Dan Simmons relays the real-life adventures of Ernest Hemingway & his ragtag counter-espionage crew made up of friends from the Spanish Civil War, including (among others) bartenders, prostitutes, a priest, a millionaire, and a young boy. Perhaps the most impressive characteristic of this work of fiction, however, is that it's 95 percent true.
Simmons, known well among horror and science fiction enthusiasts, tackles a new genre with "The Crook Factory." His research is remarkable and proves for a strong foundation throughout the entire novel.
The protagonist is Lucas, an FBI agent by J. Edgar Hoover to keep an eye on Papa Hemingway during his sojourn into playing spy and chasing German subs in his boat, Pilar. Despite his initial feelings of indifference, Lucas grows quite fond of the writer and his particular slant on life. As history tells us, Hemingway and his crew never sank a German sub. They did, however, manage to discover much about how the FBI did its business in Cuba, some of which hints at conspiracy. In April 1943, "The Crook Factory" was shut down, and until this novel, the story of what went on has never really been told.
I'm always a bit skeptical when an author places real people into a work of fiction. What's more, given the nature of the subject matter, "The Crook Factory" might come off as hard to believe. For this, Simmons relies on historical facts and thorough research.
It's not necessary to be a Hemingway fan to enjoy this book. Although the plot is bound by history, the action is fast-paced and exciting. I found the insights into Hemingway's character and a glimpse into this small period of his life to be well worth the read. According to Simmons, "this period appears to be the basis for the raging paranoia in the last years of Hemingway's life - a period when the writer was certain that he was being followed by the FBI." Is this true, and if so, what could he and his crew have discovered to warrant such activity? Read "The Crook Factory" and find out.
--Ryan Adams
Simmons leaps from fat genre novels (suspense/horror/sf fantasy) to fat mainstream historical suspense in retelling the story of Ernest Hemingway's submarine-chasing exploits off Cuba in 1942-43. As is often the case with the author's overplanned and hyperdetailed novels, this one boasts proliferating plots and subplots.
At its center lolls the brawnily bravura Falstaffian bully/braggart Hemingway, who at age 43 lives with fourth wife Martha Gellhorn in their finca outside Havana, coasting on the great reviews of For Whom the Bell Tolls from two years earlier and editing his anthology Men at War; Hemingway is also overdrinking and trying to assemble a raggle-taggle spy group (or crook factory) in Havana to support his pursuit of Nazi subs with his famed fishing boat, Pilar, while falling under the spell of the FBI and IRS (who undermine his sanity, causing the paranoia that later leads him to suicide). And that barely scratches the surface.
Simmons also takes on Hemingway's sense of "the-true gen"-that is, how things work: guns, boats, boxing, fishing-and rivals him at his own game by creating a smartly characterized narrator, FBI agent Joe Lucas, who reads no fiction, has never read a word of Hemingway, and outsmarts Papa on boats, boxing, guns, and the true gen of spycraft. Simmons claims that ninety-five percent of his book is "true," derived from FBI files. Regardless, though, what helps vastly is that utter pragmatist Joe Lucas, fatally ill, has only nine months to write the book, unburdened by any strivings for an artistic excellence he knows nothing about. Thus when Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman show up to talk about filming For Whom the Bell Tolls,Joe has only the vaguest idea of what's under discussion.
Also on hand: foppish top spy Commander Ian Fleming, getting charged up for his James Bond novels. For a change, Papa never utters a syllable that rings false. Meantime, Simmons (Children of the Night, 1992, etc.) more than handily ladles out suspense, a German Mata Hari, and a steady stream of solemn bemusement. .
"Gutsy [and] vividly depicted ... the web of conspiracy Simmons spins, the zesty characters it entangles and its intricate cross-weave of fact and fiction distinguish this celebration of the Hemingway centenary."
—Publishers Weekly
"Delightfully spry. The plot quickly evolves into a real page-turning espionage story, complete with corrupt police officials, double agents, secret codes, and multiple murders. Fun reading for both Hemingway aficionados and spy novel enthusiasts."—Library Journal
"Filled with crackerjack writing, a page-turning plot,and characters who will haunt the reader long after the book is finished...Terrific."—San Antonio Express-News
"A remarkable book...The stand-out thriller of the year."—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"A remarkable book...The stand-out thriller of the year."
"Filled with crackerjack writing, a page-turning plot,and characters who will haunt the reader long after the book is finished...Terrific."
Patrick Lawlor delivers on every level in this fictionalized account of Ernest Hemingway’s 1940 amateur spy ring, which was sanctioned by the U.S. and operated from his Cuban ranch. Lawlor captures a broad cast of characters such as fishermen, prostitutes, priests, orphans, and millionaires, providing an array distinctive voices and accents throughout. His depiction of FBI agent Joe Lucas, sent by FBI director Hoover to win the great writer’s trust, recounts the initial stages of their deadly game of wartime espionage. Then a crucial piece of information is found, and the chase begins. While the book’s portrayals of Hemingway’s salty conversations leave the impression that the great writer’s speech was pretty vulgar, the gripping story makes this a first-rate thriller. G.D.W. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940169613186 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Brilliance Audio |
| Publication date: | 06/07/2011 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Read an Excerpt
He finally did it on a Sunday, July 2, 1961, up in Idaho, in a new house which, I suspect, meant little to him, but which had a view up a valley to the high peaks, down the valley to the river, and across the valley to a cemetery where friends were buried.
I was in Cuba when I heard the news. There was some irony in this, because I had not been back to Cuba in the nineteen years since my time with Hemingway. There was more irony in the fact that July 2, 1961 was my forty-ninth birthday. I spent it following a greasy little man through greasy little bars, and then driving all nightstill following him -- as he drove three hundred and fifty kilometers out into the boondocks, out beyond where the armored train in Santa Clara marks the road to Remedios. I was out there in the cane fields and palm forests for another day and night before my business with the greasy little man was done, and I did not hear a radio until I stopped at the Hotel Perla in Santa Clara for a drink. The radio there was playing sad music -- almost funereal -- but I thought nothing of it and spoke to no one. I did not hear about Hemingway's death until I was back in Havana that evening, checking out of the hotel near where the U.S. embassy had been until Castro had kicked the Americans out just a few months before, in January.
"Did you hear, señor?" said the seventy-year-old bellman as he carried my bags out to the curb.
"What?" I said. The old man knew me only as a businessman from Colombia. If he had personal news for me, it could be very bad.
"The writer is dead," said the old man. His thin cheeks under the gray stubble were trembling.
"What writer?" I said, glancing at my watch.I had to make a plane at eight P.M.
"Señor Papa," said the old bellman.
I froze with my wrist still raised. For a brief moment, I found it hard to focus on the dial of my watch. "Hemingway?" I said.
"Yes," said the old man. His head kept bobbing up and down long after the single syllable was uttered.
"How?" I said.
"Gunshot," said the bellman. "In the head. By his own hand."
Of course, I thought. I said, "When?"
"Two days ago," said the old man. He sighed heavily. I could smell the rum. "In the United States," he added as if that explained everything.
"Sic transit hijo de puta," I said under my breath. A polite translation might be "There goes the son of a bitch."
The old bellman's head snapped back on his scrawny neck as if he had been slapped. His servile, usually rheumy eyes flashed a sudden anger bordering on hatred. He set my bags down on the floor of the lobby as if freeing his hands to fight. I realized that the old man might well have known Hemingway.
I raised my right hand, palm out. "It's all right," I said. "It's something the writer said. Something Hemingway said when they threw Batista out during the Glorious Revolution."
The bellman nodded, but his eyes were still angry. I gave him two pesos and walked out, leaving my bags near the door.
My first impulse was to find the car I had been using and had left abandoned on a street just outside the Old Section -- and drive out to the finca. It was only twelve miles away. But I realized that this was a bad idea. I had to get to the airport and get out of this country as soon as I could, not go wandering around like some goddamned tourist. Besides, the farm had been confiscated by the revolutionary government. There were soldiers standing guard out there right now.
Standing guard over what? I thought. Over his thousands of books that he hadn't been able to get out of the country? His dozens of cats? His rifles and shotguns and hunting trophies? His boat? Where was the Pilar? I wondered. Still berthed in Cojímar or pressed into service of the state?
At any rate, I knew for a fact that the Finca Vigía had been closed up for this past year with a battalion of former orphans and beggars receiving military instruction on the grounds. Word in Havana was that the ragtag militia was not allowed in the house -- they slept in tents near the tennis courts -- but that their commandante slept in the guest house, almost certainly in the same bed that had been mine when we ran the Crook Factory out of that same building. And I had film in the false lining of my suitcase that showed quite clearly that Fidel had stationed an antiaircraft unit on the patio of the Steinharts' home on the hilltop next to Hemingway's farm -- sixteen 100-millimeter Soviet AA guns to defend Havana from the heights. There were eighty-seven Cuban gunners at the site and six Russian advisers.
No, not the Finca Vigía. Not this hot summer evening.
I walked the eleven blocks down Obispo Street to the Floridita. Already, just a year and a half after the revolution, the streets seemed empty compared with the traffic I remembered here during the early '40s. Four Russian army officers came out of a bar across the way, obviously drunk and singing very loudly. The Cubans on Obispo -- the young men in white shirts, the pretty girls in short skirts all looked away as if the Russians were urinating in public. None of the whores approached them.
The Floridita had also become property of the state, I knew, but it was open this Tuesday evening. I had heard that the bar had been air-conditioned in the '50s, but either my informant had been misinformed or the cost of cooling the place had become prohibitive after the revolution, for this evening the shutters were all up and the bar was open to the sidewalks, just as it had been when Hemingway and I drank there.
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