Bitter Sugar: A Lupe Solano Mystery (Lupe Solano Mysteries) Hardcover - 2001

From the publisher

Private property was stolen and livelihoods destroyed in the wake of Castro's Cuban revolution, breeding bitterness and rage-which in turn breed murder.

Sexy, smart, and hot-tempered, Lupe Solano is arguably the best private investigator in Miami -- though her father would be much happier had she chosen a safer career. So Lupe is thrown a curve when her beloved Papi asks her for professional help.

Senor Solano's old friend Ramon Suarez owned a prosperous sugar mill back in Cuba until Castro nationalized the property and forced him and his family into exile. Now, years later, an unnamed source in Spain is offering to purchase the confiscated property at a fraction of its value. Lazy, no-good nephew Alexander Suarez wants the money. Tio Ramon is suspicious and wants to know what's behind this sudden interest in a nonproducing sugar mill.

What starts as a routine journey down a paper trail soon turns deadly when Alexander is found brutally slain in a sleazy Miami hotel -- and his last known visitor, Tio Ramon, is accused of the murder. Suddenly Lupe has a killer to unmask if she's going to prove Papi's dearest friend innocent.

But Lupe is rapidly becoming entangled in the mysterious web of spun sugar and blood that captured and killed Alexander. And when bullets smash through her own window, she begins to wonder if maybe Papi was right all along. But stubborn honor -- and anger -- compel her to continue with her investigation, even if what she turns up rocks her world, her family, and the entire Miami Cuban community to its very foundations.