In her metafictional mystery The Novel Detective (Soho Crime, July 2026), author Teresa Dovalpage steps directly into the pages of her own story. In this candid Q&A, she discusses ghosts, the underground secrets of 1980s Havana, and what happens when a mystery writer becomes her own protagonist.
The Blurb
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.
Q In the 1980 timeline, Teresita is obsessed with finding the “Truth of Life.” What does that phrase mean to a fourteen-year-old in Havana?
A Teresita is at that awkward age where she’s no longer a child, but not yet an adult. For her, the “Truth of Life” is the secret code that adults use to navigate a world that she finds full of contradictions. It’s about understanding why a classmate meets with a teacher in a “tunnel of love” and discovering how enjoyable (or icky, as it turns out to be) it is to kiss a boy for the first time. Plus living in 1980 Cuba, she needs to understand how the world actually works once the revolutionary anthems stop playing.
Q The book is described as metafictional. How does your perspective as a real-life mystery writer influence the way the fictional Teresa approaches the investigation?
A It adds a layer of creative self-consciousness. The adult Teresa is investigating a crime while thinking about how the case would work as a literary plot. She’s analyzing clues like a mystery writer, looking for hidden reasons and character arcs, even as real-world Havana throws her curveballs that don’t fit into a neat three-act structure. It’s a story about a writer investigating a detective story, which allowed me to play with all the tropes of the genre.
Q We meet Teresita’s childhood best friend, Estrella, in both timelines. What role does she play in pushing the story forward?
A Estrella is the ultimate catalyst. While teenage Teresita is the observer, Estrella is the one who takes things personally, gets into fights and acts out. In 1980, she’s the rebellious girl joking about the school’s “mustard and ketchup” uniforms and doing Santerรญa ceremonies to attract a boy she likes. In the modern timeline, she’s the one who pulls Teresa back to the crime scene and asks her to find out what really happened. Every detective needs a partner who provides the emotional stakes, and for Teresa, that’s always been Estrella.
Q Teresita knows some dangerous secrets, like who is stealing amphetamines in the pharmacy where her mother works and the affair between a teacher and a student. How much of this was a reality for students in Cuba back then?
A When a society is highly monitored, the underground thrives. Growing up, things like black-market jeans, diverted pharmacy supplies, inflated grades, and banned Beatles songs were just part of daily life. We had a saying back then: “Whatever is not prohibited is compulsory.” I wanted The Novel Detective to capture that exact tension. Behind the facade of perfect socialist behavior demanded by teachers like Irma, absolutely everyone had a secret they were desperate to protect.
Q What do you hope readers take away from your specific blend of Cuban nostalgia and atmospheric mystery?
A I hope readers see that nostalgia isn’t always sunny. You can miss the place you grew up while still acknowledging the shadows that lurked there. I wanted to portray a Havana that is still beautiful, but one that is also crumbling and facing immense shortages and hardships. Ultimately, I want readers to walk away feeling like they’ve spent time in the Manzana de Gรณmez, both as tourists in a luxury hotel, and as students who know exactly where the “tunnels of love” lead.
Thank you so much for being on the blog today, Teresa.
Book Details
ISBN: 978 1641298285
Publisher: Soho Crime
Formats: e-book and hardback
No. of Pages: 333 (hardback)
Purchase Links
About the Author
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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(media courtesy of Rachel's Random Resources)
(all opinions are my own)
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