A New York Times Book Review Editors'' ChoiceHavana 1957. On the same day that the Mafia capo Umberto Anastasia is assassinated in a barber''s chair in New York a hippopotamus escapes from the zoo and is shot and killed by its pursuers. Assigned to cover the zoo story Joaquin Porrata a young Cuban journalist finds himself embroiled in the mysterious connections between the hippo''s death and the mafioso''s in this intoxicating story of murder mobsters and finally love.