Batista’s coup
Fulgencio Batista takes power in Cuba, deepening the political and social tensions that later shape the revolution.
Shelby Alexander Novels
Shelby Alexander Novels · Book 2
The Havana Deception
Cold War secrets surface in Havana—and Shelby is caught in the undertow.
A new covert mission pulls Shelby Alexander into Havana, where a buried Cold War secret has become dangerously current.
With deception at every turn and powerful enemies protecting the past, Shelby must separate ally from adversary before the truth disappears for good.
HavanaCold War secretsCovert mission
For book clubs & classroomsExplore the Havana companion Book club companion
History leaves a second trail.
Use this guide to discuss the Cuban history beneath The Havana Deception—and the way a buried past keeps reaching into the present.
The historical trail
From revolution to Playa Girón.
A short orientation before the conversation begins.
The Revolution
Fidel Castro’s revolutionary forces overthrow Batista. The new government begins remaking Cuba’s political and economic life.
The break hardens
Relations between Cuba and the United States deteriorate as nationalization, sanctions, and competing intelligence operations reshape the island.
Playa Girón
The Bay of Pigs invasion lands at Playa Girón. Its failure strengthens Castro’s position and intensifies the crackdown on suspected opponents.
The island closes
For many Cubans, leaving becomes increasingly difficult as surveillance, fear, and political control tighten around ordinary life.
A return to Playa Girón
The novel’s present-day Cuban sequence returns to the same coast, where old intelligence secrets still carry personal and political consequences.
World behind the story
The facts beneath the fiction.
The novel’s intelligence plot is fictional. Its pressure comes from real history.
A place with two names
Playa Girón is the Cuban name for the Bay of Pigs, a remote stretch of southern coastline whose geography became inseparable from the failed 1961 invasion.
History as leverage
The novel imagines documents from the Bay of Pigs era as dangerous because they could expose operations, betrayals, and people who still have something to lose.
The human cost
Behind the intelligence story is Sofia’s interrupted life: political upheaval turns a love story, a family, and the simple hope of leaving Cuba into matters of survival.
The intelligence shadow
The CIA, Cuban intelligence, and Soviet influence form the pressure system around the characters. The story uses that real Cold War atmosphere as the stage for fictional events.
Discussion room
One question.
No rush.
Switch between a spoiler-free opening conversation and the full-book questions.
Spoiler-free discussion
Prompt 01
How does the meaning of Playa Girón change when the characters return there decades after the Bay of Pigs?
Suggested format: spend 15 minutes on the timeline, 20 minutes on the historical trail, and the rest on the novel’s characters, secrets, and choices.