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?