The Cold War between the USA and Cuba gets very hot — and sexy — in José Latour’s latest gripping and atmospheric thriller. In the rest of the world, the Cold War is over, but the one between the United States and Cuba is kept stoked by both governments — and by the spies they keep in business. Colonel Victoria Valiente, one of the most respected officers in the General Directorate of Intelligence, is the Havana-based spymaster of greater Miami. An apparently faithful servant of the revolution, she is middle-aged, frumpy, with an IQ off the charts and a libido to match. But her husband has convinced her that Castro’s regime is corrupt and moribund, and that they must defect. Buoyed by $2.7 million that he steals electronically and salts away in an online bank, the couple sails to Key West. They have no idea that the FBI is on to them. The G-men have coerced Elliot Steill, a Cuban exile living in Miami (and the hero of Latour’s previous novel, Outcast), into betraying his former compadres. This crafted, erotically charged novel culminates in an electrifying showdown, offering an inside view into the regime’s darkest corners while shedding light on contemporary Cuba.

A Cuban spymaster plans an escape to Florida—but lethal complications await—in a suspenseful tale that’s “beautifully crafted from start to finish” (Library Journal, starred review). Only ninety miles of open water separate Florida from Cuba, but after decades of Communist rule, the two tropical paradises couldn’t be more different. In Havana, spymaster Victoria Valiente, head of Cuban Intelligence’s vital Miami Desk, and her computer-expert husband are tired of their sacrifices. After planning a multimillion-dollar electronic heist, they try to pull the wool over the Chief’s eyes and escape to freedom—but first they have to elude a world of espionage as cutthroat as anything from the height of the Cold War. As both governments draw out all the players—including a gardener with more abilities than just a green thumb, secret foreign operatives, the FBI, and an unsuspecting former English teacher—Victoria and her husband must try to survive in the dangerous zone between the neon streets of Miami and the crumbling facades of Havana . . . “Victoria Valiente may well be one of the most fascinating characters to appear in a crime novel in my memory.” —The Baltimore Sun “An exhilarating espionage tale.” —Financial Times “A well-plotted, compelling tale of the infrastructure of spies, politics, and ordinary people . . . Latour takes the reader on an armchair trip from Miami neighborhood to the heart of Havana, delivering a cityscape that is as multilayered as his plot.” —Houston Chronicle

The master of "Cuban noir" returns with a novel of espionage that follows a Cuban spy couple as they decide to defect to the U.S. with the FBI hot on their tail and 2.7 million dollars in stolen money in their possession. Reprint.