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BECAUSE IN 1961, NO ONE WOULD HAVE CALLED
FIDEL CASTRO THE RETIRING TYPE

There were five of them, each prepared to kill, each with his own reasons for accepting what might well be a suicide mission. The pay? $20,000 apiece. The mission? Find a way into Cuba and kill Castro.

This breathtaking thriller, originally published the year before the Cuban Missile Crisis under a pen name Lawrence Block never used before or since, is the rarest of Block’s books—and still a work of chilling relevance all these years later, with Castro and Cuba once again commanding headlines.

• First publication in almost 50 years!
• First publication ever under Block’s real name
• Lawrence Block has won more awards for mystery writing than almost any other living author: 4 Edgar Awards, 4 Shamus Awards, 2 Maltese Falcon Awards, the Nero Wolfe Award, and more
• Block was named a Grandmaster by the Mystery Writers of America, their highest honor (previous recipients include James M. Cain, Agatha Christie, and Ross Macdonald)
• Dana Kaye on KILLING CASTRO: "All you’d expect from a pulp novel, and much more...The history is just as thrilling as the plot and Block excels at balancing the two."
• Booklist on KILLING CASTRO: "Hard Case Crime continues to resurrect early work by genre salwart Lawrence Block [and] this one may be the most interesting find of all...plenty of blood and bullets and, as always with Block, a fine feel for character."
• Publishers Weekly on KILLING CASTRO: "Absorbing...[an] intense, taut thriller."

"Exceptional...a whale of a knockout punch to the solar plexus."

— New York Daily News

"The reader is riveted to the words, the action."

— Robert Ludlum, author of THE BOURNE IDENTITY

"Remarkable...The suspense is relentless."

— Philadelphia Inquirer