Our Man In Havana characters

Appears from the start

A mild, middle-aged Englishman who sells vacuum cleaners in Havana and raises his teenage daughter alone. His business is unprofitable and he is ill suited to intrigue, but anxiety about paying for Milly's expensive wishes makes an unexpected offer from British intelligence tempting.

Also known as Milly

Appears from the start

Wormold's seventeen-year-old daughter, a devout Catholic with firm opinions and expensive tastes. She loves her father but assumes that requests for a horse, clothes, and entertainment can somehow be met, intensifying his fear that his failing shop cannot provide for her.

Appears from the start

An elderly German doctor and Wormold's closest friend in Havana. A thoughtful exile with a dry understanding of fear and politics, he listens to Wormold's worries over drinks and warns him that secrecy can become dangerous even when it begins as a joke.

Appears from the start

A powerful officer in Captain Batista's police who courts Milly. Urbane and threatening in equal measure, he carries a cigarette case made from police equipment and speaks calmly about torture, making him a difficult rival for Wormold to oppose directly.

First appears in chapter 2

An officer of the British Secret Service who identifies Wormold as a possible Havana contact. He mistakes ordinary reserve and financial anxiety for useful discretion, recruits Wormold with little preparation, and explains that additional agents will bring additional payments.

First appears in chapter 2

Wormold's assistant at the vacuum-cleaner shop. He knows the practical state of the business and continues tending it while Wormold's new intelligence work draws him into unexplained errands and absences.

First appears in chapter 7

An efficient British intelligence officer sent to Havana as Wormold's secretary and radio operator after London decides his reports are important. She arrives expecting an experienced station chief and a real network, and her competence makes it increasingly difficult for him to preserve his fiction.

First appears in chapter 10

A polished Englishman whom Wormold encounters after his imaginary reports have attracted dangerous attention. His ordinary social manner gives Wormold little firm evidence of his allegiance, but a threat that once existed only on paper is beginning to take physical form around him.