The Ultimate Havana

At the start of Edgar finalist Lantigua’s winning fourth mystery featuring Miami, Fla., PI Willie Cuesta (after 2020’s Remember My Face), Cesar Mendoza, a legendary figure in the city’s Cuban community and “a world-renowned expert on fine cigars,” asks Willie to find Carlos Espada, the son of one of Cesar’s friends, who hasn’t been seen for two weeks. Carlos, who also works in the cigar business, told his mother, Victoria, that he was traveling to the Dominican Republic for his job, but he never arrived there, and his boss denies any knowledge of such a trip. Victoria believes that his disappearance was involuntary, bolstered by her discovery of a photo of him with an unidentified woman accompanied by a warning note. Willie finds a clipping in Carlos’s room about a brutal double slaying, which may be connected to cigar counterfeiting. Willie winds up trying to solve the murder of someone connected to the case, and his probing takes him to the D.R. for answers. Lantigua combines a sympathetic, imperfect lead and plausible characterizations with a well-paced plot. Fans of contemporary PI fiction will be pleased. (Mar.)