Books & Books presents…

AN EVENING WITH RANDY RICHARDSON

discussing

Havana Hangover

Wednesday, May 3rd, 7:00 PM | Books & Books, Coral Gables

RSVP HERE FOR FREE

Books & Books is thrilled to present an evening with Randy Richardson as he discusses his book: Havana Hangover.

This event is FREE and open to the public and books will be available for purchase the night of the event so make sure to stay after the talk for a book signing! Please RSVP only if you intend to join us.

About the Book:

Thirty-year-old Chicago corporate lawyer Tanner Ford leaves behind a painful past and lucrative job for a bucket-list trip to Cuba with Jackson Swift, his estranged best friend from law school. But when they arrive, the oddities start adding up. Jackson evades questions about his wife and kids. Their itinerary keeps changing, and their tour guide might work for a fake company. When Tanner awakes after a rum-soaked night beside Dannel, a local musician with something to hide, and a text from Jackson that reads “HELP ME,” his dream vacation turns into a fight for survival. He is held hostage in an abandoned cigar factory, interrogated by the police, and hunted down by a mysterious “ghost” in the Cuban government. Beset by anxiety and panic attacks, Tanner is hurled unwittingly into an international conspiracy leading right back to Jackson and a friendship that began in betrayal.

Havana Hangover is a story about healing, friendship, love and deceit, set within a lovingly-rendered Cuban cityscape and fueled by rapid twists and turns, eventually landing in the corrupt corners of DC politics.

“Randy Richardson’s edge-of-your-seat suspense novel, ‘Havana Hangover, ‘ is terrifying in its vivid portrayal of contemporary Cuba, with twists and turns that ram the characters through the storyline trajectory like the bullets that fly from chapter to chapter. Parallel to the action are soul-searching questions many of us ask. How far will I go before I sell my soul? The conclusion of ‘Havana Hangover’ is a terrifying treatise to the 2023 political landscape we live in.”

— Catherine Lanigan, author of Romancing the Stone and The Jewel of the Nile

“Randy Richardson delivers a seamless suspense thriller, a crackling read centered around the smokey, sizzling, sensual streets of Havana with all of its political and mysterious undertones. The ghost of Ernest Hemingway, Cuba’s most famous adopted son haunts this story, one that reads like the tension-filled narrative behind the late Warren Zevon’s‘Lawyers, Guns and Money,’ a song that evokes the shadowy secrets of the Cuban underworld. Gripping from start to finish.”

— David W. Berner, author of A Well-Respected Man, and former Writer-in-Residence at the Ernest Hemingway Birthplace Home

“In ‘Havana Hangover’ by Randy Richardson, the author combines love, greed, and heartbreak into a page-turning thriller. Two young lawyers whose friendship fell apart during law school reunite under somewhat mysterious circumstances and fly to Havana. Once there, it becomes dangerous for one lawyer to trust the other, especially when the other goes missing. Deftly woven throughout the story is Richardson’s knowledge of Cuba. At times we’re in an upscale night club or watching a beautiful sunset. Other times we’re drawn into the tattered relics of the past. Or haunted by the ghost of Hemingway. If the lure of Cuba calls you and you enjoy a first-rate thriller, don’t miss ‘Havana Hangover.’”

— Libby Fischer Hellmann, author of Havana Lost

An attorney and award-winning journalist, Randy Richardson is a founding member and president of the nonprofit Chicago Writers Association. He is the first male recipient of the National Federation of Press Women’s Communicator of Achievement Award and was named to NewCity’s 2019 and 2022 “Lit 50: Who Really Books in Chicago” list. His essays have been published in the anthologies Chicken Soup for the Father and Son Soul, Humor for a Boomer’s Heart, The Big Book of Christmas Joy, Storytellers’ True Stories About Love,and Cubbie Blues: 100 Years of Waiting Till Next Year, as well as in numerous literary journals including Hypertext and Memory House. He is the author of three novels, Havana Hangover, Cheeseland and Lost in the Ivy, and coauthor of Cubsessions: Famous Fans of Chicago’s North Side Baseball Team. His website is randyrichardson.co