Don't Miss:

A Russian Perspective on the state of the Union. Straight from Pravda.ru here. A new wrinkle on the Russians dissing us, gotta love it!
(Although it uses the name, as a cheesy fellow reminded me, it is not the old official Soviet news organ.)

Read: Fidel's Last Days

With that title, I couldn't pass it by. Surprisingly, I'm not sorry I didn't. The novel by Roland Merullo is eminently readable as a suspense story. Here is a labyrinthine plot, a storyline layered with tissue upon tissue of deception, much of which rings true. The odd thing is that the succession of power is never mentioned, nor the extended putrescence of the maximum leader. No, I can only surmise that the novel was written at an earlier time unmarked by the dictator's extended illness, but by the time the novel was published, 2008, circumstances had changed considerably, because Merullo's Fidel is functioning on all cylinders.

Still, I enjoyed it. There were few places where the truth teller radar went off. My biggest gripe is that it all ended too abruptly, left some major questions and characters suspended in the ether. In any case, you could do much worse than spend an afternoon between Miami and Havana. From the author's title to God's ears...