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Accepted by the Pulitzer Prize Board for consideration in 2007

Fidel Castro's 26 July Movement responds to Batista's cruel dictatorship with student protests and guerilla attacks against the Cuban army. Castro is in Key West raising money for his exile army training in Mexico. An assassin sent to Key West by Batista to kill Castro mistakenly murders a young man who resembles Castro. Ramon, the oldest brother of the murdered man, tracks the assassin to Cuba to avenge his brother's death. After seeing conditions in Cuba, Ramon decides to help overthrow Batista and he smuggles guns to Castro's army in Mexico and and later in Cuba.

When relations between the United States and Cuba sour after Castro's takeover, the CIA pressures Ramon to run guns to anti-Castro forces. Ramon learns that many Cubans support Castro and advises the CIA that it is doubtful there would be support for an invasion of Cuba.

After the fiasco at the Bay of Pigs, Ramon's life returns to normal until the CIA once again recruits him to take agents into Cuba to document the installation of missiles. When he attempts to bring the agents back to Florida, the Cuban military nearly sink his boat. The information he brings back from Cuba is vital to the Kennedy Administration and their confrontation with the Soviet Union to remove the missiles.

REVIEW:

A singularly absorbing and suspenseful tale., December 9, 2006

Reviewer:

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)

Written by former US Air Force pilot and hospital CEO Patrick Lennon, Paradise Lost is historical fiction novel about a Cuban man caught in the midst of power struggles within and beyond the borders of his nation during the mid-twentieth century. When his younger brother is mistaken for Castro and murdered by an assassin working for the Batista regime, Ramon seeks the assassin to exact revenge, but when he sees the cruel conditions in Cuba, he changes allegiance and helps Castro put an end to the Batista government. Later, relations between America and Cuba turn sour, and the CIA blackmails Ramon into running guns for anti-Castro forces. Despite his warning to the CIA that Castro has significant Cuban popular support, the CIA proceeds with the disastrous Bay of Pigs raid. A period of quiet for Ramon follows - until he is placed firmly at the center of US-Soviet tension over the installation of missiles, in what was most likely the greatest crisis of the Kennedy administration. A singularly absorbing and suspenseful tale.

Reviewer:

Ervin E. Harmon (Tarpon Springs,Fl USA)

Paradise Lost by Patrick A. Lennon is a Historical Fiction that is about Cuba and The Cuban Missile Crisis that starts shortly before President John F. Kennedy took office. This book is an outstanding read from cover to cover. This book is informative, exciting, well written, with a lot of suspense and action, and much more. You will like Patrick A. Lennon's writing style.

Patrick A. Lennon has won two Short story contests. 'Paradise Lost' has been accepted for the 2007 Pulitzer competition and after reading this book I can see why. Some other books this author has written are :
Tale Spinning, Wolf Creek, A Dose of Murder, and Kiss The Pilot.

I highly recommend Paradise Lost and plan to read some of this authors other books.

REVIEW:

Paradise Lost Lee Gordon, Reviewer
After World War II, the United States were known as the saviors of the free world and entered a period of prosperity. Unbeknownst to the average American citizen, lines and boundaries had been drawn, territory had been claimed and there was an undercurrent of despotism on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The United States government was not above (and still isn’t) lending a little aid of money, weapons and “consultants” to help certain countries with their revolutions, as long it seemed to be in America’s best interest at attempting to slow the spread of communism. Whether or not the support America provided certain countries was in the best interest of the certain countries citizenship is another matter that didn’t seem to be considered. Paradise Lost is a story about revenge and ramifications. President Batista, dictator of Cuba puts a hit on young Fidel Castro, who is raising money in Key West Florida to support an army to over throw Batista’s tyrannical regime. Carlos Molina, a Castro sympathizer, is mistakenly thought to be Castro and is shot and killed by an assassin Major Garcia. Ramon Molina, Carlos’s older brother decides to seek vengeance for his brother’s murder. In an exciting by the-seat-of-your-pants action scene Ramon tracks Garcia to Cuba. Upon his return from his vengeance quest Ramon is enlisted as a gun-runner for Castro. Later he is coerced into working for the CIA while trying to balance his business and family life. Lennon has successfully written from a Cuban American’s point of view which lends a different but important perspective of an average person caught in the waves from Castro’s overthrow of Batista reign, America’s interest in Cuba, the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Any reader that enjoys a Tom Clancy novel minus the high-tech hardware and gadgetry should read Paradise Lost. It is an espionage thriller with a provincial realism and a human element that tugs at the heart and makes one reexamine their family and patriotic values. John Milton’s Paradise Lost is an epic poem about original sin, the fall of man and the loss of innocence. Patrick Lennon’s Paradise Lost, shows us a loss of innocence when the blinders of ignorance are removed and we see behind the propaganda, rhetoric, double-speak and their consequences.

REVIEW:

Patrick Lennons newest work, Paradise Lost is an exciting historical novel based on events surrounding Fidel Castro's rise to power in Cuba.  Lennon excells at capturing all the different points of view expressed by the different groups both in and outside of Cuba at that time. His hero gets involved when his brother is killed by an assasin's bullet marked for Fidel Castro while he was in Florida.  Ramon sets out to avenge his brother and gets involved in the politics and the intrigue to the point he is routinely risking his life.  By that time the CIA has decided he should help them, willingly or not and the stakes just keep getting higher.
A great story, by a great story teller! Exceptional Writing!

Ron Watson                Editor4(at)newbookreviews.org       

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