Last Seen in Havana (A Havana Mystery)
A Cuban American woman searches for her long-lost mother and fights to restore a beautiful but crumbling Art Deco home in the heart of Havana in this moving, immersive new mystery, perfect for fans of Of Women and Salt.
Newly widowed baker Mercedes Spivey flies from Miami to her native Cuba in 2019 to care for her ailing paternal grandmother. Mercedes’s life has been shaped by loss, beginning with the mysterious unsolved disappearance of her mother when Mercedes was a little girl. Returning to Cuba revives Mercedes’s hopes of finding her mother as she attempts to piece together the few scraps of information she has. Could her mother still be alive?
Thirty-three years earlier, in 1986, an American college student with endless political optimism falls deliriously in love with a handsome Cuban soldier while on a spontaneous visit to the island. She decides to stay permanently, but soon discovers that nothing is as it seems in Havana.
The two women’s stories proceed in parallel as Mercedes gets closer to the truth about her mother, uncovering shocking family secrets in the process . . .
Newly widowed baker Mercedes Spivey flies from Miami to her native Cuba in 2019 to care for her ailing paternal grandmother. Mercedes’s life has been shaped by loss, beginning with the mysterious unsolved disappearance of her mother when Mercedes was a little girl. Returning to Cuba revives Mercedes’s hopes of finding her mother as she attempts to piece together the few scraps of information she has. Could her mother still be alive?
Thirty-three years earlier, in 1986, an American college student with endless political optimism falls deliriously in love with a handsome Cuban soldier while on a spontaneous visit to the island. She decides to stay permanently, but soon discovers that nothing is as it seems in Havana.
The two women’s stories proceed in parallel as Mercedes gets closer to the truth about her mother, uncovering shocking family secrets in the process . . .
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Community Reviews
Mercy Spivey returns to her native Cuba to help her ill grandmother. She is also hoping to learn more about her mother who died when she was very young. The story that takes place in the past, in the 1980s, is quite intriguing. Apparently, Mercy's mother was a young American girl who travels to Havana, Cuba, on a lark and falls in love with a handsome Cuban, Joaquin. She is estranged from her parents but maintains a strong friendship with a gay male friend from her college years. At first the mother is enthralled with the political zeal and fervor of the Cuban revolution, but as she gets pregnant and has a child she longs for home. With the help of a Russian friend, she manages a few visits to the U.S. and brings much needed supplies to Cuba.
Spoiler alert: With the collapse of the Soviet Union and withdrawal of its financial help, Cubans are struggling with severe shortages. Sometimes they travel to the countryside to her mother's family home where things are a bit better on the farm. Eventually she plans to leave her husband and Cuba, but is killed by her husband when he discovers her plot. He then commits suicide. This is not the happy ending but it does solve a long buried mystery and gives Mercy some closure.
Spoiler alert: With the collapse of the Soviet Union and withdrawal of its financial help, Cubans are struggling with severe shortages. Sometimes they travel to the countryside to her mother's family home where things are a bit better on the farm. Eventually she plans to leave her husband and Cuba, but is killed by her husband when he discovers her plot. He then commits suicide. This is not the happy ending but it does solve a long buried mystery and gives Mercy some closure.
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