The Attraction of Cuba

CHRIS HILTON WENT TO HAVANA in the early 2000s to escape the drudgery of everyday life in England—and, boy, did he escape it. Suddenly he found himself mixed up with a variety of gangland chancers, some Cuban, one British, all living on the edge of legality.

There was always a risk of their moneymaking schemes getting rumbled by the police but that’s what made it so compelling: the chance, the risk. Office life this wasn’t. And then there was Jamilia—a refugee from rural poverty, who’d come to the big city as a teenager, and been rescued from the streets by an unnerving family of small-time criminals.

“A little crazy is good,” Jamilia tells Chris— and a little crazy they become, living hard, loving hard and downing a deal of Cuban rum.

But how long can craziness last? And what happens when good fortune turns to bad?