Miami It is where Fidel Castro raised money to overthrow Batista and where two generations of Castros enemies have raised armies to overthrow him so far without success. It is where the bitter opera of Cuban exile intersects with the cynicism of U.S. foreign policy. It is a city whose skyrocketing murder rate is fueled by the cocaine trade racial discontent and an undeclared war on the island ninety miles to the south. As Didion follows Miamis drift into a Third World capital she also locates its position in the secret history of the Cold War from the Bay of Pigs to the Reagan doctrine and from the Kennedy assassination to the Watergate break in. Miami is not just a portrait of a city but a masterly study of immigration and exile passion hypocrisy and political violence.