Lugu on humoorikas, vägivaldne ja stiilne. Tegu on mingis mõttes memuaariga, ainest sai ta ise sarnases olukorras elades ning kindlasti on sealsetest juhtumitest-tegelastest tõesed vaid kuskil 10%. Siiski on asi kirjutatud tõesti memuaarina, kus kirjeldab oma sulandumist ajalehe toimkonda ning sealse saare ellu.
"I grinned and leaned back in the seat as we drove on. There was a strange and unreal air about the whole world I'd come into. It was amusing and vaguely depressing at the same time. Here I was, living in a luxury hotel, racing around a half-Latin city in a toy car that looked like a cockroach and sounded like a jet fighter, sneaking down alleys and humping on the beach, scavenging for food in shark-infested waters, hounded by mobs yelling in foreign tongue - and the whole thing was taking place in quaint old Spanish Puerto Rico, where everybody spent American dollars and drove American cars and sat around roulette wheels pretending they were in Casablanca. One part of the city looked like Tampa and the other part looked like a medieval asylum. Everybody I met acted as if they had just come back from a crucial screen test. And I was being paid a ridiculous salary to wander around and take it all in, to 'find out what was really going on'".
Tüüp kirjutab siis ajalehele lookesi, toimetus ise koosneb igasugustest inimtüüpidest, kes kõik sealt ära saada tahavad ja ootavad iga hetk lehe kinnipanekut. Kemp ise on suhteliselt terav pliiats ja varsti kohtub maa-arendajatega, kes paradiisisaarest suure hotelli teha tahavad. Varsti peab ta Puerto Ricost kirjutama kui heast puhkepaigast ning aitama neil puhtad valged rannad täis ehitada. Siis hakkab mees mõtlema, et mida kuradit ta teeb ja kas see raha on seda väärt, ja kas ta üldse elus midagi saavutab ja miks ta sinna saarele üleüldse ronis.
Tegelased on värvikad, hästi välja toodud. Üks neist on temavanune Yeamon, kes onäkilise iseloomuga, kergelt hull noormees. Temaga on kaasas tema tüdruk, kelle pärast juhtub palju pahandust. Muuhulgas joodakse pidevalt rummi ja nähakse inimiseloomu tumedamaid, odavamaid külgi. Satutakse vanglasse, pidudele, vägistamisele. Kõikjale.
Moberg had been in San Juan only a few months, but Lotterman seemed to loathe him with a passion that it would take most men years to cultivate. Moberg was a degenerate. He was small, with thin blond hair and a face that was pale and flabby. I have never seen a man so bent on self-destruction -- not only self, but destruction of everything he could get his hands on. He was lewd and corrupt in every way. He hated the taste of rum, yet he would finish a bottle in ten minutes, then vomit and fall down. He ate nothing but sweet rolls and spaghetti, which he would heave the moment he got drunk. He spent all his money on whores and when that got dull he would take on an occasional queer, just for the strangeness of it. He would do anything for money, and this was the man we had on the police beat. Often he disappeared for days at a time. Then someone would have to track him down through the dirtiest bars in La Perla, a slum so foul that on maps of San Juan it appears as a blank space. La Perla was Moberg's headquarters; he felt at home there, he said, and in the rest of the city -- except for a few horrible bars -- he was a lost soul.
Tummine suvine lugemine.
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