The Lady from Buenos Aires

John Lantigua has written a smart geopolitical thriller with a cliff-hanging plotline that makes it an addictive page-turner. Set in the tango nightclub scene of steamy Miami, detective Willie Cuesta stumbles across the dirty laundry of Argentina's disappeared under the military government. Cuesta has never been more amusingly self-deprecating as he stumbles across buried tragedies and takes readers on a chase across Little Havana and Miami itself. For those headed to Miami, "The Lady From Buenos Aires" book will immerse you in the sights and sounds of the tropical city. For those who enjoyed John LeCarre's "The Constant Gardener," this book will envelop you in a smart, fictionalized drama, based on the city's real-life Latin American intrigues. Anne-Marie O'Connor

Hollywood is looking for franchises--repeat movies starring the same character--and John Lantigua's Willie Cuesta is one of the most promising undevelopeds waiting for some enterprising producer to beckon. LADY is Willie's best tale yet. Lantigua really knows South Florida and the richness of the current and constantly evolving Miami background is a genuine secondary treat. The third element of LADY is its interwoven South American history, here that of Argentina, and the disappearance of the villains of sordid Latin past into the quiet comfort of Miami present. Let's have more Willie!

John Lantigua's third book featuring Cuban-American private eye Willie Cuesta, The Lady from Buenos Aires, works on a number of levels: as a well-constructed mystery, a cultural snapshot of contemporary Miami, and a literary investigation into one of Latin America's ugliest chapters--Argentina's "disappeared" dissidents. It is to Lantigua's credit that he achieves all of this while keeping the action constantly moving, moving, moving, like the tango beat so often alluded to in the novel (beginning with the sumptuous cover image of two dancers locked in a passionate embrace). The set-up is classic detective fiction--a beautiful woman (the deliciously named Fiona Bonaventura) needs our hero's help. The case, though, is nothing Hammett or Chandler would have ever imagined: The mystery lady wants Willie to confirm that a young art student spotted in Miami is, in fact, her niece, the daughter of a sister killed during Argentina's "dirty war" of the 1970s and '80s. She suspects that the couple who raised the girl were accomplices in her sister's death, and she wants Willie to prove it, or at least get the girl away from them. Of course, in detective mysteries, as in Latin America's dark past, very little is as it seems, and Willie is quickly plunged into a thick tangle of intrigue, murder, and family betrayal. Along the way, he discovers what William Faulkner always knew: "The past is never dead. It's not even past." Lantigua's Miami isn't the cryogenically-frozen landscape of the 1980s (with its ubiquitous Cuban bad guys), but rather the pulsing, constantly evolving Miami of today--immigrants and exiles from all over, high-rises in the barrio, and polo fields on the edge of the Everglades. Lantigua, like his hero Willie Cuesta, knows his way around town--and around a mystery.

It's been too long since we've seen Willie Cuesta. He is back and better than ever. Lantigua knows of what he writes--the scenes and history are dead on. A one-sitting read-a-thon.

From the hottest tango spots to the best bodegas, Cuban-American PI Willie Cuesta knows his Latin Miami. Specializing in missing persons, his newest case (after "The Ultimate Havana,") expands his reach, landing him in the deadly tangle of Argentina's "disappeared." The case seems straightforward. Elegant Argentinean Fiona Bonaventura hires him to confirm that a young Miami art student is her murdered sister Sonia's missing child. Sonia and her husband were among those dissidents kidnapped, drugged, and dropped from airplanes into shark-infested waters during the 1980s. No sooner does Cuesta find Elena than he loses her, the whole family fleeing hastily out the back door of their apartment. And from then on, someone always seems to be a step ahead of him, littering his path with bodies. Could an insider - a family member - be behind Sonia's betrayal and death? Cuesta's sleuthing takes him into the hidden corners of the Argentine expatriate community, where CIA ties and arms deals lurk behind diplomatic passports and horsy parties, and hardly anyone seems to be who they claim to be. Riding the hard-boiled wake of Raymond Chandler, award-winning journalist Lantigua delivers snappy prose and well-informed background. The atmosphere is rich with Miami's vibrant Hispanic culture and murky politics. A darkly literate thriller.