To Have and Have Not

I don't know who made the laws, but I know there ain't no law that you got to go hungry. Harry Morgan was hard, the classic Hemingway hero. He had to be hard, rum-running and man-running from Cuba to the Forida Keys in the Depression. He ran risks, too, from stray coastguard bullets and sudden doublecrosses. But it was the only way he could keep his boat, keep his independence, and keep his belly full... Absorbing and moving. It opens with a fusillade of bullets, reaches its climax with another, and sustains a high pitchy of excitement throughout. - Times Literary Supplement Its tragic scenes are rendered with an economy of words and a power that might well be the despair of a lesser writer. - Scotsman This active, passionate life on the verge of the tropics is perfect material for the Hemingway style, and the reader carries away from the book a sense of freshness and exhilaration; trade winds, southern cities and warm seas all admirably described by the instrument of prescision with which he writes. - New Statesman