Havana Heat Hardcover - 2000

From the publisher

Feisty, fiery Cuban-American p.i. Lupe Solano knows her way in and out of every tight corner of her tropical Miami home -- from the opulent watering holes of Miami Beach to the colorful back streets of Little Havana to seedy, dangerous dives no self-respecting individual would be caught dead in. But now things are about to get hotter for Lupe than they have ever gotten before.Havana Heat

Poured into her tightest dress, and balancing on her highest heels, Lupe merely wants to make the best impression possible at the wedding of her niece to a scion of the ultra-wealthy Miranda family. But she finds it impossible to leave her business back in the office when she is accosted by the groom's overbearing Aunt Lucia, and tantalized by an incredible tale of a lost, five centuries-old masterpiece -- the legendary Eighth Unicorn Tapestry -- that the rich "tia" claims is locked away in a secret underground vault beneath the family home. The only trouble is, the mansion in question is back in Havana. And Aunt Lucia has decided that Lupe should be the one to finally return the tapestry to its rightful owners.

Besides the large potential payday, Lupe Solano has her own personal reasons -- not necessarily good ones -- for agreeing to transform herself from a less-than-typical Florida investigator into a brazen art smuggler. But before she sets off on a trail that will lead Lupe across the treacherous Florida straits into the heart of Havana, a rather shady business contact turns up dead in his bed, strangled with a pair of pantyhose. After a second murder occurs, Lupe's ready to start looking for connections between the two local homicides and her covert art-rescue mission. Because it'sbeginning to look as if her life depends upon her making them.

Once again, acclaimed author Carolina Garcia-Aguilera has captured the heart and soul of Miami's Cuban-American community in her fiction. Readers who have already enjoyed her previous novels will cheer the return of Lupe Solano, investigator without peer, in her most exciting, surprising, and colorful adventure to date. For those new to the series, "Havana Heat" is the ideal place to discover the intrepid investigator whom critics across the nation have placed among mystery's "freshest," "most interesting," "most formidable protagonists."