Black-and-white footage of bandleaders Beny Moré and Arsenio Rodríguez flickered on overhead screens. That night, a full orchestra played a rousing rumba against colorful walls splashed with artificially aged murals of palm trees and revelers in old-fashioned Cuban dress. La Habana was L.A.’s new ethnic restaurant du jour, modeled after a 1930s Cuban supper club. Once again, the joke was on me.īut it was hard to nurse a bad mood inside La Habana.

So when Escobar hadn’t shown up by nine o’clock for our eight thirty dinner meeting, I was sorry I had agreed to meet him without more questions. Let’s just say I was wary of calls from powerful strangers. And the last two Hollywood heavy hitters who had contacted me-both women-craved skills that had nothing to do with my acting. My microscopic part in a respected film set during the Harlem Renaissance, Lenox Avenue, hadn’t done much for my career.

Escobar was an Oscar-nominated director on a hot streak, and I was lucky to have a job playing a corrupt lawyer on one of the last surviving soap operas.Īfter twenty years in the industry, I no longer believed in the Big Bang. Even my agent had no idea why Escobar had called me. ExcerptĪLL ACTORS DREAM of a meeting that will change our lives forever, but I didn’t dare hope that Gustavo Escobar would be mine. In a pulse-pounding thriller that could be described as Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins meets Miami Vice, Tennyson Hardwick is back big time with his trademark sexiness, sizzle, and James Bond-like sophistication. Realizing it’s the killer who’s terrorizing him, Ten is presented with a lose-lose dilemma: save his daughter or the woman he loves. But the respite doesn’t last long, and Tennyson discovers someone is after him, his girlfriend, and Chela. When it’s believed the suspected killer may have committed suicide, things return to normal for Ten and his family.

Tennyson believes he knows who the killer is, but the suspect escapes when the actor-detective tries to capture him. When Maria’s body washes ashore, Chela and the authorities fear that her suspicious death is connected to a serial killer preying on young prostitutes. The pair dives into the South Beach club scene, but Maria mysteriously goes missing. Ten’s soon-to-be-adopted daughter, Chela, runs into old friend Maria from her earlier days as a prostitute in Los Angeles. South by Southeast, a title inspired by the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, finds Tennyson and his family in South Beach, Florida, where he is filming his role in a television detective series. The fourth installment in this award-winning mystery series draws actor-turned-super-sleuth Tennyson Hardwick into his most challenging case, compelling him to face the unthinkable: save his daughter or the woman he loves.

Tananarive due series