DEATH UNDER THE PERSEIDS

A dog groomer returns to her family home in Havana, little imagining the complications that await her even before she gets there.

Even though she can’t remember entering a raffle, Merceditas Montero Spivey wins a Nautilus Cruise Line trip for two to Havana. Since her husband, Dr. Nolan Spivey, has just been invited to give an academic paper at the University of Havana but can’t afford the travel expenses from Gainesville, he’s delighted. Once aboard the Narwhal, Mercy is disconcerted to hear someone paging Kiel Ostargó, a Danish friend of Lorenzo Alvear, a professor she’d had an affair with while studying at the University of Havana. Mercy had had an abortive fling with Kiel shortly before meeting Nolan, whom she'd left Lorenzo for, but hasn’t seen him since. She looks for Kiel aboard the ship, but he’s nowhere to be found. The ill-named Mercy is even more apprehensive when she’s recognized by her former mentor Selfa Segarra, the Havana professor she’s always suspected of turning Lorenzo in to the authorities over anti-government remarks in his unpublished novel Las Perseidas, which was retitled and published in Spain after Lorenzo’s suicide under the byline of his literary agent, Javier Jurado, who also happens to be aboard the Narwhal. Can it be mere coincidence that so many figures from doomed Lorenzo’s past are together again? The question gains urgency as the people in question begin to disappear or die. The final revelation, improbable but logically satisfying, goes a long way to make up for the unappealing characters, and the scenes of Mercy’s return to Havana are a definite plus.

Is it better to travel hopefully or to arrive? This time they both look pretty dire.