The complicated relationship between the United States and Cuba, which dates to the 19th century, is changing again under the Obama administration -- changes that have gotten the attention of writers and publishers who are also linking their books to the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution.

There will be a steady stream of books about that relationship and revolution in the months ahead including the remarkably long tenure of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

"Without Fidel: A Death Foretold in Miami, Havana and Washington" by Ann Louise Bardach (Scribner, $28) is a thorough overview of the current situation between the two countries, including actions by President Obama.

Bardach, a freelance journalist, is also the author of "Cuba Confidential" (2002), an indictment of the Cuban-American community.

Her new report updates the precarious health of the 83-year-old dictator as well as several of his enemies, also in their 80s.

Bardach also reports on the federal government's long-running anti-Castro efforts as well as the Bush administration's various fumbles and political opportunism.

A related new book is "Miami Babylon: Crime, Wealth and Power -- A Dispatch from the Beach" by Gerald Posner (Simon & Schuster, $27).

Posner, a Miami Beach resident, turns his strong investigative skills to the history of the Florida mecca, a city with a long track record of corruption and shadowy events.

His previous subjects covered assassinations, 9/11 and the Middle East.

Miami, center of anti-Castro factions, is also a political battleground in the state forever linked to the 2000 presidential election controversy as well as a hedonist's playground. Quite a combination.

"The Autobiography of Fidel Castro" (Norton, $27.95) is not the dictator's memoirs, but a novel by Norberto Fuentes, a former ally now settled in, where else? Florida. He was a journalist in his native Cuba before going into exile in the 1990s.

Fuentes imagines the life and thoughts of this rare bird, a dedicated Communist from an upper-class background.

There's a large banner with the image of Che Guevara hanging on a government building in Havana, the same image that decorates T-shirts and posters around the world. He's the icon of the romantic revolutionary and a key player in Castro's revolt.

"Fidel and Che: A Revolutionary Friendship" by Simon Reid-Henry (Walker, $28) argues that Castro's revolution in Cuba gave the Argentina native a platform for his socialist ideas, ideas that largely rejected Soviet-style economics in favor of Chinese approaches.

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