HAVANA HIGHWIRE

An American private investigator gets into plenty of trouble in 1950s Cuba.

After sending his Anegadan detective, Teddy Creque, back to the peaceful Virgin Islands, Keyse-Walker decides to hang around Havana awhile. But this time, the mission is more dangerous than retrieving Nanny Giles’ beloved boat, blown off course in a hurricane in Palms, Paradise, Poison (2022). His new series is set in brutal, corrupt Batista-era Cuba. His new detective is Henry Gore, born in Warsaw, Indiana, and fresh from a stint as the sole U.S. Army Office of Special Investigations investigator in Aroostook County, Maine. Henry wants nothing more than to live someplace warm where he can keep body and soul together by snapping photos of errant husbands cavorting with mistresses for wives back in the Midwest to use in securing fat divorce settlements. Unfortunately, the bouncer at the Capri teaches Henry that American husbands do not want their photos taken with their mistresses and that Cuban nightclub owners are willing to enforce those preferences with their fists when necessary. So he lets his local partner, Moncho Mercado, talk him into something even riskier: helping Col. Ernesto Blanco Rico of the Servicio de Inteligencia Militar infiltrate the Directorio Revolucionario, which is bent on bringing down the Batista regime. Twists follow double-crosses as Henry and his street-urchin sidekick, Benny, negotiate the nightmare that is midcentury Cuba. Teddy Creque fans be warned: This rough-and-tumble new series includes torture scenes that would be strictly off-limits in gentle Anegada.

Guess we aren’t in Indiana anymore.