The Novel Detective

A metafictional mystery set in Cuba past and present about a writer returning to her long-lost hometown, seeking the truth about two suspicious deaths

2020: Teresa, a Cuban-born mystery writer now living in America, gets an unexpected call from her childhood best friend, Estrella, inviting her to Havana. Estrella is determined to get answers about a case that has haunted them both for decades: the purported murder-suicide of a teacher and a student at their high school. Though Teresa doesn’t quite understand why Estrella is taking the story so personally, she’s along for the ride—as she always wanted to write a novel about this case.

1980: Fourteen-year-old Teresita, bespectacled, awkward and mystery novel–obsessed, is “nosy, but not a tattletale.” She knows who’s been skimming off the top of the amphetamine stash in her mother’s pharmacy, which teacher keeps cyanide in his cabinet at school and that their classmate Yoyi is sleeping with their English teacher. Over the course of one fateful day, Teresita gets closer than ever to learning the “Truth of Life”—her catchall term for the intricacies of adult existence—even if it means coming face to face with death.

Directly inspired by the author’s own childhood in Cuba and adult life in the United States, drawing upon the tradition of Latin American magical realism, this is a resonant tale at once personal and universal, full of nostalgia, candor and danger.

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Intro:
Teresa knew that saying “yes” to her friend’s invitation meant facing the ghosts she left behind in Cuba. The official report called the death of a teacher and a former classmate a double suicide, but Teresa and her friend Estrella knew better. They return to Havana to reopen a case that has been haunting them for years, and this time, they won’t leave until the truth is out.
* * *
For many years, I would wake up before dawn with my heart pounding a mile a minute. Afterward, it was hard for me to fall back asleep. I knew that, from deep within my dreams, two dead people would be calling out to me: Yoyi, the prettiest girl in my ninth-grade class, and Felipe, our English teacher and the school’s heartthrob.
In my nightmares they weren’t making out or smiling at each other, like I had seen them many times. No, I saw them as they had looked on the last day of their lives: Yoyi, lying on the floor, dying or already dead, and the teacher’s body shattered against the ground of the school’s courtyard. Invariably, at some point, Estrella and I would appear, shaking and sobbing—two frightened teens facing the Truth of Death for the first time.
Having left Cuba a few weeks after that dreadful episode, I never found out the results of the police investigation. One thing I was sure of, though—it wasn’t a double suicide, as a neighbor had told my grandma. Yoyi hadn’t poisoned herself, nor written the odd suicide note that I saw next to her. I also doubted that Felipe had jumped out of the fourth-floor window. There had been someone else at the school—not the ghost of Andrés Gómez Mena, as I had once naively believed, but a flesh-and-blood someone who had killed Yoyi and Felipe.
The worst part was a secret shame I never dared to share with anyone. Why hadn’t I told the lieutenant everything I knew when I was called to testify at the police station? That little lie I had said to protect Estrella . . . and then the issue with the amphetamines, which I had covered for my mother’s sake. They had been minor fibs, but still.
I tried to reassure myself. What did all that matter anymore? I was now an adult living in the United States, and my Cuban life was but a distant memory. I probably didn’t remember things too clearly anymore. The nightmares didn’t stop, but a quiet voice whispered to me that someday, I’d find out who the killer was. And then the dreams wouldn’t return.
That’s why I wasn’t totally surprised when Estrella reached out to me, though by then, in early January 2020, we hadn’t had any contact for over four decades. The same span had passed since the deaths at La Manzana.
It wasn’t eight o’clock yet. I was getting a call from a 305-area code. The number didn’t match any of my Miami friends’. I almost let it go to voicemail, but curiosity got the best of me.
“Hello?”
“Teresita, so glad you answered!” a familiar voice said. So familiar that despite the years without seeing each other (well, hearing each other, since we hadn’t met again yet), I recognized it immediately.
“Estrella? Where are you?”
“Oh, I’ve been in Miami for quite a while and just saw a review of one of your books, a mystery novel. I always suspected you’d be a writer. How cool is that, girl!”
I felt flattered.
“Well, thanks. What about you?”
“I’m a DJ at La Poderosa, a Spanish-language radio station. I have a show called Strolling Through Miami with Estrella where I interview people at Domino Park, the Palace of Juices, the Versailles restaurant . . .”
I smiled. Estrella had wanted to be an actress, but a DJ sounded more like her. That girl couldn’t keep her mouth shut!
“Is your mom there too?” I asked.
“Yes. She lives in Tampa now but isn’t doing well.”
There was a pause.
“Sorry to hear that,” I said, not sure how to proceed. Estrella’s mother, Mantonia, was a sweet lady who’d had a soft spot for me.
Out of the blue, Estrella asked, “Do you remember Yoyi?”
The question was strange, but I answered it honestly. “How could I not?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know who killed her and Felipe?”
“Of course!”
“Then would you go back to Cuba with me and talk to the witnesses?” she asked shyly, her voice shaking a bit. That was new. Estrella used to be assertive, bordering on aggressive. “You’re a mystery writer, so you must know something about solving crimes.”
This time I laughed out loud. She seemed to believe that writing mystery novels made me a detective. That’s like expecting to defecate the perfect custard if you just eat enough eggs and the right amount of condensed milk… 

 

Teresa Dovalpage is the author of fourteen novels, four collections of short stories in English and Spanish, and four theatre plays. Her Havana Mystery series, published by Soho Crime, began with Death Comes in through the Kitchen (2018). Subsequent novels include Queen of Bones (2019) named by NBC News as one of the ten best books by and about Latinos of the year; Death of a Telenovela Star (2020); Death under the Perseids (2021), and Last Seen in Havana (2024) which Sarah Weinman praised in The New York Times for exploring “how familial bonds can fray, yet manage to hold steady, across the decades.” Last Seen in Havana was also an Amazon Editor’s Pick for Best Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense. The Novel Detective is a metafictional mystery inspired by the author’s own childhood in Cuba and adult life in the United States.

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