Our Man in Havana is a 1958 novel written by Graham Greene. It was adapted into a film starring Alec Guinness in 1959, as well as an opera in 1963 and a straight play in 2007.
James Wormold, a British expat and struggling salesman of Phastcleaner vacuum cleaners in Cuba, is approached by an official in British intelligence and asked to set up a spy ring.
Contains examples of:
- Bavarian Fire Drill: Wormold's reports from Cuba include mysterious construction in the jungle. The fact that no experts can make sense of the schematics provided (lifted from vacuum schematics), and that no other intelligence agency seems to know about them, is taken as proof that they are both legitimate and representative of some new weapon system.
- City of Spies
- Drinking Game: Wormold challenges Captain Segura to a game of checkers, where each piece is a mini/sampler bottle of whisky, which Wormold has been collecting for some time. (Wormold plays the Scotches, Segura the bourbons.) When you capture a piece, you have to drink it. This makes for some interesting changes in the usual strategies, which Captain Segura doesn't realize until far too late.
- Genuine Human Hide: The local police chief, Captain Segura, is rumored to carry a cigarette case made of human skin. It's true, though to make it slightly justifiable, the skin came from the guy who murdered his father.
- Madonna-Whore Complex: Milly, Wormold's daughter, is simultaneously devoutly Catholic, claiming that Wormold remains married even though his wife abandoned them years ago, but also manipulative, free-spirited, and seductive toward Captain Segura.
- The Book Cipher: Wormold uses Charles Lamb's "Tales from Shakespeare" to encode and decode messages. A difference in edition turns several messages into complete nonsense.
