The Crook Factory

Written by Dan Simmons

Narrated by Patrick Lawlor

At the height of World War II, the famous writer Ernest Hemingway sought permission from the U.S. government to operate a spy ring out of his house in the Cuban countryside. This much is true.…

It is the summer of ’42 and FBI agent Joe Lucas has come to Cuba at the behest of J. Edgar Hoover to keep an eye on Hemingway. The great writer has assembled a ragtag spy ring that he calls the “Crook Factory” to play a dangerous game of amateur espionage. But then Lucas and Hemingway, against all the odds, uncover a critical piece of intelligence—and the game turns deadly.

In The Crook Factory, award-winning author Dan Simmons expands a little-known fact into a tour de force of gripping historical suspense set in the sensual Cuban landscape of the early 1940s.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Jun 7, 2011
• ISBN: 9781455810505

Dan Simmons

Dan Simmons is the Hugo Award-winning author of Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, and their sequels, Endymion and The Rise of Endymion. He has written the critically acclaimed suspense novels Darwin's Blade and The Crook Factory, as well as other highly respected works, including Summer of Night and its sequel A Winter Haunting, Song of Kali, Carrion Comfort, and Worlds Enough & Time. Simmons makes his home in Colorado.

Reviews for The Crook Factory

[burritapal · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

If you like Hemingway, or even if you don't that much (I find it hard to read that "the man and the girl" stuff), you will probably like this book. It's about Hemingway's little amateur spy ring in Cuba during WWII. Fictionalized, but based on facts.

[hagelstein_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An interesting thing about this fictional account of Ernest Hemingway’s amateur intelligence gathering, spy-catching and German submarine-hunting operation in Cuba during the early years of WWII is that it is “all the more incredible for being 95 percent true,” according to the author, Dan Simmons. FBI Special Agent Joe Lucas is a South American specialist with a reputation for killing. He is summoned from Mexico City for an audience before J. Edgar Hoover, the Director. Hoover wants Lucas to get close to Hemingway and report back to Hoover about his activities.Lucas becomes integral to Hemingway’s “Crook Factory” and lends his expertise to the cause. Despite his mixed feelings, Lucas comes to grudgingly admire Hemingway and his operation. There is also the intrigue and interaction of the German, U.S., British and Cuban intelligence and law enforcement agencies on the island. The mix of fiction and historical reality, along with some sound writing, makes this an intriguing and well-paced thriller.

[evenlake_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Based on the real-life story of Ernest Hemingway's amateur spy ring in Cuba during the Second World War, *The Crook Factory* is Dan Simmons' fictionalized version of the events that took place in 1942-43 in and around Hemingway's Cuban villa.

]It is meticulously researched and a good story, but it fell flat for me in a couple of ways. First, there are a few too many winks at the reader, statements made by characters of the mid-20th century that any reader in the 21st century would know to be wrong. One particularly clunky example:

"'Rather more [J Edgar Hoover's] style to haul you up in front of a Senate committee investigating Communist infiltration and discredit you or send you to jail'
'There's no such thing as a witch-hunt committee like that,' said Hemingway."

Second, it felt at times that nothing of what Simmons found in the archives was left out of the book. The story is fascinating, but the way it is presented, it is overburdened by detail and research. As he has Hemingway state at one point, "Only you have to avoid showing off... parading all the things you know like marching captured soldiers through the capitol."

In his other historical fictions, *Drood* and *The Terror*, Simmons does an excellent job of not letting his research get in the way. *The Crook Factory* was originally published in 1999 (this is a re-release by Mulholland Books), and maybe, by the time he wrote the later novels, Simmons learned how to incorporate his research more naturally into the narrative.

Perhaps the best review is done by the narrator himself. At the end of the book, he is reflecting on his time with Hemingway, and the best way to write about it. "In later years, Hemingway was quoted as saying that a novel was like an iceberg--seven-eighths of it should be invisible.... I knew that I would never be good enough as a writer to tell the story that way."

[joe73-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Another Simmons history novel. And a very good one at that. Simmons has a unique method of placing a fictional character into something that may or not have happened. Usually the story is told by that fictional character in their final years. The Crook Factory is a solid page turner. A true love letter to Hemingway who is probably one of the most misunderstood writers of the 20th century. Simmons is a true magician with plot and subtext. The more of his material I read the higher I put him on the literary food chain. It seems he is able to get more out of a story than his contemporaries. The conversation our protagonist with has with EH about not wanting to end a story is a beyond brilliant way of Simmons telling his audience....."You want a story...well, I am going to give you the whole thing and then some.

[pife43-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I pushed my way thru this one. The story is deep, chewy, and exciting and I was attracted to it to learn about Hemmingways character mainly. The book is worth the read just for that matter alone. But the adventure is gripping, has great twists, and is well written.
I like Dan Simmons books, but must make sure that I have nothing more pressing to read, or I find that I set his aside often.
This book will make me go back and read Drood again. That is a book that I have set aside too many times. Time to finish it.

[willie3_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A great book by one of the best authors of our time. I love his historical fiction, this one involving Hemingway. Simmon's meticulous research and fact based story makes it difficult to tell historical fact from Simmon's fiction.Yes, the story telling is that good.So good to see Crook Factory 'back' in print as a trade paperback.

[antiquary_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This seems a bit slow starting --the first part is chiefly socializing with Hemingway and his friends in Cuba, with cameo appearances by Ingrid Bergman and Marlene Dietrich. Simmons seems to be more interested in exploring Hemingway's character and his qualities as a writer than advancing the story at first. The main question in this part of the story seems to be whether Hemingway is ultimately a real man's man or a phony bully pretending to be a hero. Simmons is aware that at least by this time in Hemingway's life some phoniness could creep in, but ultimately he takes a more positive view than other books I've seen such as Hemingway at War. The issue is worked out in a knockdown dragout fight between Hemingway and the protagonist, Joe Lucas. It is a terrific fight ending in mutual respect, though I strongly suspect Hemingway would not really have been in shape for such a fight at that stage of his life.Other aspects of the book are similar in that there is a tendency to work in famous names --notably the young John Kennedy --in implausible ways. A document about Kennedy's affair with a possible German spy shows up in a very random collection of German intelligence documents supposedly being released by the SS to discredit the Abwehr. Simmons includes facsimiles of apparently genuine documents but they are a very odd assortment.I will say I respect the most significant plot twist --I had just thought to myself "Simmons doesn't have the guts to make that person the traitor" when he did it.After that the book moves much more rapidly to a terrific climax, in which Lucas faces down several villains and Hemingway does prove himself heroic in saving Lucas's life.Overall, I think it is a good action adventure despite the rather slow opening.

[samsattler · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Think what you might about Ernest Hemingway’s writing, personality, attitude toward women, etc., there is no denying that the man lived life to the fullest. And, of course, he went out with a bang, further ensuring his legendary status in the world of American literature. But, as detailed in the Dan Simmons novel, The Crook Factory, there is much more to the Hemingway life story than most realize. Lest readers be left wondering how much of the novel is based on fact, Simmons adds this clarifying note at the end of the book: “The incredible story of Ernest Hemingway’s Cuban spy-catching, submarine-chasing, World War II adventures in my new novel, The Crook Factory, is – I think – all the more incredible for being 95 percent true.” He then goes through a list of plot twists and main characters that are based on “confirmed fact.” Fictional FBI man Joe Lucas, under direct orders from J. Edgar Hoover, is in Cuba to keep tabs on Hemingway and the little network of spies Hemingway is running there. Hemingway, although he is a little suspicious of Lucas, only knows that the U.S. ambassador to Cuba will not approve the operation unless Lucas is part of the team. He is not particularly happy to have Lucas on board, and, in turn, Lucas is unhappy because he thinks he has been assigned simply to “babysit” Hemingway long enough to keep him out of trouble – or from embarrassing the U.S. government.But then people start dying. And everything changes. In this world of agents, double-agents, traitors, and professional killers, all Lucas knows is that someone wants Ernest Hemingway – and him- very, very dead. Now, if he can figure out why, he might be able to save both their lives.The Crook Factory is a superb World War II thriller that will, I think, leave the reader with a new appreciation for just what a wild man Ernest Hemingway really was. Its seamless blending of fact and fiction includes appearances by the likes of: Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, Ingrid Bergman, Hoover, John F. Kennedy, Ian Fleming, and other figures from both sides of the war.The author’s account of Hemingway’s end is both so touching and so disturbing that readers will long remember it. That such a famous man could have been so ill-treated by the medical community and his own government is shocking. This, in combination with the incredible “missions” undertaken by Hemingway’s Crook Factory, make for engrossing reading. I do, however, have one word of warning. The story involves a tremendous amount of infighting between Hoover’s FBI and the other intelligence agencies of the U.S. and Britain, and Simmons spends way too many pages explaining how it all happens - and why. Several long sections within the book’s first two hundred pages read more like mind-numbing pages from a bad history textbook than like content from a war thriller. But don’t give up because the last 350 pages or so will greatly reward your patience. Rated at: 4.0

[viking2917_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Dan Simmons has written a number of fantastic books - some of my favorites are Hyperion, Illium, and Flashback, mostly in the Science Fiction realm. But he's wide ranging - Drood was a widely regarded novel based on the life of Charles Dickens and he's also written various Horror novels. In The Crook Factory, Simmons tackles a fun meme - the semi-fictional novelization of little known or improbable events. This is territory that reminds me of one of Tim Powers' best novels, Declare, which somehow manages to put together Kim Philby (the super spy), Lawrence of Arabia, Djinn and Nazis. In this case Simmons isn't channeling the supernatural, just the world of 1940s Cuba and J Edgar Hoover - and yes Nazis and Marlene Dietrich too. Oh, and Ernest Hemingway.Did you know that Hemingway was a spy? Me neither.The Crook Factory plays out through the eyes of Joe Lucas, a fictional FBI agent with a history of bending the law and being the FBI's goto person when dirty tricks or semi legal activities are involvedJoe is sent to become part of, and spy on, Hemingway's burgeoning spy ring - the crook factory. Through Joe we meet, and become very close to, Ernest Hemingway - the writer, the lover, the prodigious drinker, the pugilist, the sentimentalist, the blowhard, the trickster. The novel renders Hemingway in amazing depth.Joe and Ernest are off to fight the Nazis and sink subs (seriously), as well as the fighting off the local Cuban police while watching out for any number of competing intelligence agencies.Crook factory is a great adventure and a fantastic history lesson all wrapped in one. Virtually all of the novel with the exception of Joe Lucas himself is well grounded in fact. I also gained a much more realized view of Hemingway the man (albeit fictionalized), and the book inspired me to return to some of Hemingway's novels (e.g. For Whom the Bell Tolls) with renewed appreciation.If any of this sounds interesting, get The Crook Factory - you won't be sorry.[I received a complimentary copy of The Crook Factory through the excellent LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.].

[command3r · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Crook Factory was an engaging read that despite its length kept me engaged for the duration of the story. It did drag a bit with an extensive epilogue that was unnecessary, but I can forgive that with the idea that the author wanted to detail the real endings to the actual people and events used during the narrative. The interplay between the fictionalized account of Hemingway's amateur espionage ring and the real events and historical characters was interesting and would be to anyone interested in the intelligence saga of WWII. A credit to the author is that the narrative kept moving and new events/pieces to the puzzle were added just as the narrative might start dragging, and the main character figured out the various twists at the same time as the reader.

[erikschreppel · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This is a book in desperate need of an editor. Just went on far too long, and with a more interesting plot, that would have been okay. But not with this plot, it just plodded along until eventually I just prayed for it to end. Not a good outing for Simmons.

[karlstar_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Somewhat loosely based on history, myth and the Hemmingway legend, this is an excellent story. Simmon's does an excellent job of drawing us into the past, and making it compelling. There's a little history in this book, but mostly just an enjoyable story.