GORDON DAVIS – Ring Around Rosy. Gold Medal k1380, paperback original; 1st printing, January 1964. Cover art by Robert McGinnis. Also published as From Cuba, with Love, as by E. Howard Hunt. Pinnacle, paperback, 1974.

   By 1964 the revolution in Cuba was solidly in place, but its aftermath was still a mass of recrimination and guilt. Dave Mallory is no PI, but when he’s hired by a beautiful Cuban exile to find the man who informed on her father, he jumps at the chance.

   The man is also the foreman of the Cuban plantation her father once owned. Davis, a pen name of the notorious E. Howard Hunt, always surprises me how good a writer he is, no matter what byline he is using — mostly due, I am sure, to the feeling of the strong gritty authenticity that permeates his work.

— Reprinted from Mystery*File #23,, July 1990. (slightly revised).


Bibliographic Note:   The Pinnacle reprint is exceedingly scarce. At the time this review was posted, no copies could be found offered for sale on line. Amazon has a page for it, however, along with a photo, so it does exist.