Adios Muchachos

Book excerpt: This Edgar Award–winning crime novel offers “pulp fiction in Castro’s Cuba” (Martin Cruz Smith, author The Girl from Venice). Alicia is a smart, confident, and gorgeous prostitute in Havana. She is not a streetwalker. Rather, she displays her wares on bicycle, seducing men through the irresistible pull of her fine derrière. John King, her new client, is a Canadian businessman with a striking resemblance to movie star Alain Delon. This is no ordinary john, and as Alicia’s feelings for him grow, she sees in their relationship the possibility of escape from her dead-end life in a city plagued with scarcity. So when King’s wealthy and sexually deviant boss is suddenly killed, Alicia and John hatch a get-rich-quick scheme. A web of deception is woven—but it will be quickly and disastrously unraveled, and only one person will be able to say adiós to the dilapidated island of Cuba . . . “Fun, fast, and intelligent . . . A madcap caper full of twisted sex, devious schemes and high-rolling hijinks . . . Will leave readers clamoring for more.” —Publishers Weekly “The book’s cynical take on ambition and greed is tempered by humor and humanity.” —The New York Times “Impossible to put down. This is a great read.” —Library Journal