Havana Highwire

December 15, 2021
Constable Teddy Creque, the sole police officer on Anegada, a tiny island in the British Virgin Islands, conducts two daring rescues during a massive hurricane, capturing escaped prisoner Marianna Orro, a self-proclaimed Palo Mayombe priestess, in the process. With the hurricane raging, Orro escapes from the Anegada jail, leaving two men dead and one dazed with no memory of her escape. Creque soon learns a fishing boat has disappeared and believes it may have been stolen by Orro. When the boat is located on the coast of Cuba, Creque's superiors send him to Cuba, both to oversee salvaging the boat and to find evidence of Orro's presence. Working with Cuban police officer Luz Garcia, the two travel to the boat and find that the tiny town nearby is apparently being terrorized by dark magic. A principled hero, solid details of police work and the practices of Palo Mayombe and Sateria, and lushly described settings permeated by unease and possible supernatural phenomena combine to distinguish this ambiguous, unusual mystery.

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May 16, 2022
Set in 1957, this winning series launch from Keyse-Walker (the Teddy Creque mysteries) introduces Henry Gore, an unlikely sleuth, whose college degree in English history landed him in “a kind of Air Force version of the FBI,” rather than on the battlefield during the Korean War. His training in counterespionage proves invaluable when he moves to Havana, Cuba, after his military discharge. Gore partners with local Ramón Mercado to launch a PI business, but clients are hard to come by. He runs afoul of a powerful Mafioso connected to the regime of Fulgencio Batista, who intervenes when Gore tries to get a compromising photo of a cheating husband for a suspicious wife. But Gore’s prospects rebound when he gets an offer too good to refuse from Senator Guillermo Bauza, the “Cuban government’s liaison to the Syndicate.” Bauza hires Gore to help thwart rebels seeking to topple Batista’s regime by posing as a gunrunner, concerned that official law-enforcement is too corrupt to be trusted. The assignment proves even more hazardous and complicated than Gore expected. Keyse-Walker captures the feel and power dynamics of pre-Castro Cuba. Readers will eagerly await the sequel.

May 15, 2022
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.

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Starred review from June 1, 2022
Keyse-Walker's latest is set in 1950s Cuba, home of Ernest Hemingway and gangster Meyer Lansky and where the sun, sea, senoritas, and free-flowing rum hide abject poverty and the ugliness of dictator Batista's corrupt government. Henry Gore, recently demobbed from the U.S. Air Force, decides to flee the bleak American winters and head to Havana, where he plans to enjoy the city's many temptations. But the reality is very different from Henry's expectations, and he soon finds himself in hot water with Batista's government. The only way to redeem the situation is to agree to help the dictator shut down the rebels who want to overthrow the government. To do so, Henry must masquerade as a gunrunner willing to sell weapons to the rebels. When he meets the rebel leaders, however, he begins to sympathize with their cause, and the situation quickly spirals out of control. Henry finds himself in a deadly shoot-out between the government and the rebels, suspected of disloyalty by Batista's lieutenant, and forced to make a terrible choice. Darkly atmospheric writing, an action-packed plot, plenty of suspense, and a sometimes-hapless hero caught between saving his own life and doing the right thing drive this outstanding, packs-a-punch thriller.

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