New Cuban Mystery from Teresa Dovalpage, DEATH UNDER THE PERSEIDS

There's something very worrying about a free lunch: It could be provided with a dangerous ulterior motive. 

That's what Cuban-born Mercedes Spivey and her American professor husband ignore for far too long, when the couple receives a free pair of cruise tickets to the Spanish-speaking island that each one needs to revisit, for a different reason. Sweepstake winning? Accidental lottery reward? Who knows -- but the timing is so perfect that they don't question it, and jump onto a cruise boat, ready to enjoy the ride.

Within the first minutes on the cruise on the Narwhal, Mercedes spots someone from her own past ... and then perhaps a glimpse of a second person. It's a creepy coincidence, right? A chance to make things better with people she'd cut in the past? 

Teresa Dovalpage's previous Cuban mysteries are much sweeter than DEATH UNDER THE PERSEIDS, because this time we know right from the start — since Mercedes is sharing her viewpoint all along — that this "pretty woman" with her older husband has a lot to feel guilty about, and a lot left unresolved, as she's climbed her way, one affair at a time, to some sort of Floridian middle class. Soon it looks like she's surrounded by others with mixed motives. (Maybe the only truly nice person is her aging grandmother who still does the laundry by hand in the back yard of her Havana home.)

Mercedes begs us, as readers and witnesses, to believe there is one saint in her life: Lorenzo, whom she loved and left, and who then died in a fire. (Fire and blades and other threats abound!) Meanwhile, if she's the chief sinner here, are all the threats deserved? Does she still have the ability to dodge and weave, and come out ahead? Even as she disembarks in Havana, she's questioning her safety:

Two men approached the counter. One was a skinny, gray-bearded guy in a tie-dyed shirt who looked like a hippie—or at least my idea of what a hippie was. He went first. The other, who walked with a slight limp, carried a burgundy European Union passport. Our eyes met for a second, and I couldn't shake the feeling that I had seen him before. Maybe the other guy too. They both seemed sort of familiar. My throat closed and my heart pounded faster.

Dovalpage takes quite a risk herself, in presenting such an unpleasant protagonist, whose greed and self-centeredness are not really balanced by her endless chest-thumping guilt. Yet the net of threats and complications and the Cuban setting pull the story faster and faster, until it can't be set aside: The Perseids, the meteor shower that's taking place as revelations cascade, is that too somehow a message to Mercedes that her own crimes are known and she's about to lose at last?

DEATH UNDER THE PERSEIDS is much darker than Dovalpage's three earlier mysteries. Whether you collect it for the Cuban setting or for the ongoing suspense of how this maturing author will continue to develop, it's a must for the shelf. Kudos to Soho Crime (an imprint of Soho Press) for encouraging Dovalpage to move forward so fiercely.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here. 

Newest Caribbean Mystery from Teresa Dovalpage, DEATH OF A TELENOVELA STAR

Cuban-born Teresa Dovalpage's third mystery with Soho Crime/Soho Press was published over the summer; a copy reached me a few weeks ago and turned out to be the perfect light dessert for the season!

DEATH OF A TELENOVELA STAR opens with Marlene Martínez—a former Havana detective with a role in one of Dovalpage's earlier mysteries—finally taking some time off. Her brush with crime in Cuba helped motivate her to move to Miami, Florida, where she owns her own bakery. She loves it! But still, it's time to give her niece Sarita a significant quinceañera gift, and what she's opted for is an aunt-and-niece cruise to Mexico and the Caribbean. When a Cuban telenovela (soap opera) star turns out to be a fellow passenger, hunky and appealing, family bonding takes second place to social media posting for Sarita.

This is a compact, quick-paced novella with some fortune telling, a murder, and small revelations about Marlene along the way. "Men cause more trouble than they are worth," the retired detective tells herself, an easy enough position to take about the overly adored TV star -- but not as realistic when the cruise chef starts to pay some serious attention to Marlene's baking background and tastes in food.

All in all, a light-hearted, cleverly put together mystery, enjoyable and gently revelatory—treat yourself to a copy, and share it with a "bestie" so you can smile about it together.

 PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here. 

Tasting Cuba Through a New Mystery, Teresa Dovalpage's DEATH COMES IN THROUGH THE KITCHEN

Exploring another place and culture through an enjoyable mystery in that setting has a long tradition -- readers have long appreciated vintage English village life through Agatha Christie's books, and many who will never reach Italy treasure Donna Leon's Venice. Scandinavian noir takes us to Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland; the Brazilian series by the late Leighton Gage showed us a tender love of place and people coupled with the horror of crime driven by poverty and corruption.

Now it's a delight to be able to look inside Cuba in 2003 in DEATH COMES IN THROUGH THE KITCHEN, the first mystery from accomplished Havana-born author Teresa Dovalpage (Soho Crime). Dovalpage calls her book a literary mystery -- I'd rather liken it to the classic "recipe" mysteries, including the current Maine series by Barbara Ross and two food-focused series that Massachusetts author Edith Maxwell (aka Maddie Day) provides.

DEATH COMES IN THROUGH THE KITCHEN opens with the arrival of totally inexperienced, unskilled tourist Matt Sullivan, who hasn't really thought out how complicated his situation is -- but he's coming through customs with a slightly used wedding dress, a gorgeous one, that he plans to give to his Cuban sweetheart Yarmila in hopes of gaining a loving commitment from him.

The problem is, Matt really doesn't know Yarmi all that well -- she writes a cooking blog that describes delicious Cuban dishes and he's been following her via the Internet, in his role as a San Diego journalist trying to promote Latin cuisine. And his arrival during the height of Fidel Castro's police-maintained power means he'll be an under-the-table guest at a fiercely proletarian guest house, and an illicit suitor.

But by the end of the second chapter, we readers know that Yarmi has been murdered -- and Matt, the ambitious American who thought he'd found his lifeetime sweetheart, is now both bereaved, and a murder suspect ... to both the police and Yarmi's, ahem, other connections.

In fact, he's even imprisoned for a bit, and of course his passport is seized:

"Let's see. You meet this citizen, spend ten days with her, don't see her face to face again, send her tons of money," Lieutenant Martínez paused here for effect, "and come back ready to marry her. Is that correct?"

"Yes, compañera," Matt let the reference to "tons of money" slip "That's correct."

Soon Matt's desperation leads him to accepting help from a former police detective turned Santeria practitioner. But will the assistance be enough? And could there be too much benefit for all involved, by tagging Matt with the crime?

I thoroughly enjoyed this romp through Cuba via Matt's naive perceptions, and look forward to the next in this series from Dovalpage -- because there's sure to be more about this set of wild and eccentric characters. New from Soho Crime (Soho Press), released today.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.