The Novel Detective - by Teresa Dovalpage (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

2020: Teresa, a fifty-something Cuban-born mystery writer living in New Mexico, gets an unexpected call from her childhood best friend, Estrella, inviting her to Havana. Estrella is determined to get answers about the purported murder-suicide of a teacher and a student at their high school, forty years ago. Though Teresa doesn't quite understand why Estrella is taking the story so personally, she's along for the ride, as the case is the plot of the first novel she had wanted to write, but never got to--because it lacked the proper ending.

1980: Fourteen-year-old Teresita, bespectacled, awkward and mystery novel-obsessed, is "nosy, but not a tattletale." She knows who's been skimming off the top of the amphetamine stash in her mother's pharmacy, which teacher keeps cyanide in his cabinet at school, and that classmate Yoyi and English teacher Felipe are having an affair. Over the course of one fateful day in March, Teresita gets one step closer to learning the Truth of Life . . . and death.

In writing herself as a character, Teresa Dovalpage has created a warm and thought-provoking puzzle-box of a novel, revealing as much about the present as it does the past.

Review Quotes

"Sharply-plotted, highly readable, evocative, and timely . . . An author at the top of her game, and a must-read for mystery fans who love great locations paired with even better characters. I couldn't put this book down."
--Alex Segura, acclaimed author of the Pete Fernandez Miami Mystery series

"Dovalpage wields her considerable authorial skill in this intricately plotted tale of jealousy, revenge, and the dark side of love."
--Isabella Maldonado, award-winning author of the Veranda Cruz mysteries

"[A] refreshing and elusive Cuban crime novel."
--Toronto Star

"A highly entertaining mystery set in Havana, there's an ominous tone, a hint of something repressed beneath the main character's narration."
--Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"A lesser-known Cuba, with the kind of details that make it a home rather than a holiday."
--Chicago Review of Books

"Amusing, observant . . . [A] devastating depiction of prejudice in 1980s Cuba."
--Miami Herald

About the Author