Havana Mystery

There's no such thing as a free cruise in Cuban American author Teresa Dovalpage's addictively clever new Havana mystery. Cuban-born Mercedes Spivey and her American husband, Nolan, win a five-day cruise to Cuba. Although the circumstances surrounding the prize seem a little suspicious to Mercedes, Nolan's current unemployment and their need to revamp their marriage make the decision a no-brainer. Once aboard, Mercedes is surprised to see two people she met through her ex-boyfriend Lorenzo: former University of Havana professor Selfa Sagarra and down-on-his-luck Spanish writer Javier Jurado. Even stranger: they also received a free cruise. When Selfa disappears on their first day at sea, Mercedes and Javier begin to wonder if their presence on the cruise is more than a mere coincidence. Worried, Mercedes confides her suspicions to her husband, who-desperate to accept the last-minute invitation he received to give a lecture at Havana University-convinces her it's all in her head. However, when Javier dies under mysterious circumstances after the cruise disembarks in Havana, and Nolan is nowhere to be found, Mercedes wanders through the city, fearing she had been right all along. Will she be next?

A Cuban American woman searches for her long-lost mother and fights to restore a beautiful but crumbling Art Deco home in the heart of Havana in this moving, immersive new mystery, perfect for fans of Of Women and Salt. In 2019, newly widowed baker Mercedes Spivey flies from Miami to her native Cuba to care for her ailing paternal grandmother. Mercedes's life has been shaped by loss, beginning with the mysterious unsolved disappearance of her mother when Mercedes was a little girl. Returning to Cuba revives Mercedes's hopes of finding her mother as she attempts to piece together the few scraps of information she has. Could her mother still be alive? 33 years earlier, an American college student with endless political optimism falls deliriously in love with a handsome Cuban soldier while on a spontaneous visit to the island. She decides to stay permanently, but soon discovers that nothing is as it seems in Havana. The two women's stories proceed in parallel as Mercedes gets closer to discovering the truth about her mother, uncovering shocking family secrets in the process . . .