HOLD

Vacationing best friends run afoul of authorities in Cuba while investigating a fatal car accident that claimed the lives of four immunologists.

“I hope you’re getting into some good trouble,” Sarah Golden’s long-distance lover tells her over the phone. There is nothing good about it. While on a “long-overdue” vacation to Cuba, Golden, a transplant nurse, and Jackie Larson, a freshly licensed private eye, are diverted from their drinking, cigar factory tours, and performing at the Buena Vista Social Club by the tragic news that four top immunologists died in a car crash in advance of a conference in Chicago. They were scheduled to discuss the findings of their research on inducing tolerance for kidney transplant patients. Golden finds the accident suspect, and Larson is all too eager to use her newfound PI skills and connections to make inquiries—breaking a deal she agreed to with her spouse to take only “benign work.” The duo are further embroiled in the mystery when the chief of transplant at the Havana medical center violates Cuban law by slipping Golden the results of his own off-the-record study using the protocol shared by the late doctors. Pressure from authorities and threats to their families only bolster their resolve. “The people don’t know who they’re dealing with,” says Golden. Peele’s third medical mystery featuring this entertaining duo is a breezily written, cozy-adjacent read. Peele has a deft way with exposition for those new to this series, while Larson acts as a reader surrogate for laypeople (“Can someone explain to me what ‘tolerance’ means in the transplant world?” she helpfully asks). This is how we learn that “the holy grail of transplant” would “convince the body not to reject…any organ without using any drugs long term.” It doesn’t sound like something big pharma would like, and indeed, its representatives are rendered with mustache-twirling gusto. “Since Canada and Europe have socialized medicine, we should enjoy our US gravy train as long as we can,” one CEO remarks when considering the ramifications of the four doctors’ study.

A cut above; a satisfying mystery that also progresses the leads’ life journeys.