Luck of the Draw: A Novel [Hardcover]

Carolina Garcia Aguilera (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 3, 2003

Gambling runs through the blood of the Navarro family. And like the luck needed to score big, the Navarro clan will certainly need a lot of it, if they're going to hold themselves together through a hilariously highstakes game of family history and secrets.

Having heard her entire life of the lost glory of La Estrella -- "The Star," the name of the casino the Navarro family owned in Havana before Castro took power -- Esmeralda thinks it a joke when her mother informs her and her siblings Sapphire, Ruby, and Quartz that the family has a duty to bring La Estrella back into existence.

With a mandate given to her through a dream, the Navarro matriarch announces that in order for La Estrella to thrive once more, the family must be reunited in Miami. Only there's a hitch: the youngest daughter, Diamond, a journalist living in Las Vegas, is missing. The family must find a way to rescue her, not only in time to restore the family's lost business to its shimmering glory, but also to save Diamond's life.

Esmeralda, the eldest and most sensible of the Navarro clan, is dispatched to Las Vegas, and to an underworld that this Miami mother of three thought she would never be suited for. Surprisingly, Esmeralda is not only suited for it, she thrives in it.

From seedy bar to casino to back alley, Esmeralda sleuths her way through Las Vegas with sexy style -- and into a mystery that is much larger than she, her family, and her family's history had ever bargained for.

With a lightning-paced narrative and the author's trademark sense of glamour and tongue-in-cheek humor, Luck of the Draw will keep you laughing, and in suspense, until the very last page.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Garcia-Aguilera (One Hot Summer) sends her Miami heroine off on a wild Las Vegas adventure in her latest, an engaging thriller/mystery that succeeds despite an abrupt and underdeveloped ending. Esmeralda Navarro, a married, 30ish interior designer, is called to a family meeting by her mother, who announces her plans to try to recover the casino she and her husband owned and ran in Havana before Castro took over Cuba. But the plan has to wait until the family can find Esmeralda's free-spirited sister, Diamond, who doesn't seem to be at her Las Vegas newspaper office or her apartment. Esmeralda temporarily ditches her family and her troubled marriage to go to Las Vegas to find her missing sister. Fearing the worst, she arrives in Sin City with no plan, but fortunately her limo driver, the attractive, middle-aged Dennis O'Shea, turns out to be a retired NYPD homicide detective who helps her engineer a private investigation. After plenty of twists and turns, the clues point to a new casino called the Star, where Diamond took a job as a waitress before her disappearance. Esmeralda decides to pose as a high roller to try to track her down. The passages in which Navarro locates the mobster who may have kidnapped her sister feel more like a rushed explanation than a dramatic conclusion. But apart from this flaw, Esmeralda's adventure is as skillfully written and plotted as Garcia-Aguilera's successful Lupe Solano mystery series, and Esmeralda is a feisty, entertaining narrator.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

When the matriarch of the Navarro family--Cubans now living in Miami--calls for a family meeting with all her children, Esmerelda knows the news can't be good. Her siblings Sapphire, Ruby, and Quartz (get the pattern?) are all available, but it seems that the youngest, Diamond, a reporter working in Las Vegas, is missing. Senora Navarro delivers the news that she was told in a dream to resurrect La Estrella, the casino the family operated in Havana in pre-Castro days. It's no coincidence that Diamond is in Vegas, for gambling runs in this family's veins, the children having heard all the tales of life during Havana's heyday as a gambling mecca. But first they must find Diamond. With the help of a private investigator, Esmerelda makes her way to Sin City. The Navarros are an interesting bunch, and Cuban-born Garcia-Aguilera, a former PI and the author of the Lupe Solano detective series, writes with both authenticity and style. An entertaining romp. Mary Frances Wilkens
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Rayo; 1st edition (June 3, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060536330
• ISBN-13: 978-0060536336
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,903,092 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fine follow-up to Lupe Solano, July 30, 2003

By 

Dr Cathy Goodwin (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Luck of the Draw: A Novel (Hardcover)

As a fan of Garcia-Aguilera's Lupe Solano series, I was at first disappointed to meet a new heroine. However, if anything, this book was higher in quality than the later Solano novels, combining fast, upbeat tempo with a three-dimensional heroine.

I was drawn to the larger-than-life Navarro family, defined by their gambling style (everyone aced the SAT's in math because they've been calculating odds since they could talk).

After seeing an apparition, the Navarro family matriarch convenes four of the five grown children, each decorated with the name of a jewel, to search for the missing youngest child, Diamond. Esmerelda quickly rises to the challenge, flying to Las Vegas to search for her much-loved beautiful younger sister.

When her limo driver identifies himself as a retired NYPD detective, Esmerelda realizes she's gotten lucky. She follows clues and her own instinct as she learns about how Diamond lived just before she disappeared. A sudden interest in her Cuban roots? A tendency to religion? A possible involvement with criminal activity?

Thanks to wealthy parents, Esmerelda plays detective from the vantage point of a luxury hotel. In the end she draws on what she and her family know best: the gaming tables.

As she detects, Esmerelda also discovers herself as she learns to depend on herself in a new environment. She enjoys a brief escape from a troubled marriage and three loveable but demanding school-age sons. And she's too smart to accept, without question, a series of coincidences, beginning with the incident that set her on this quest in the first place.

True, Garcia-Aguilera does leave a few threads hanging. As another reviewer noted, she gets confused about dates and ages of her characters. Another plot element (I won't give it away!) remains a mystery, since every luxury highrise in Miami comes with alarm systems that could guard Fort Knox.

Most of all, any woman who can dodge the Las Vegas mob is perfectly capable of figuring out what to do with a dog while she's away. We're treated to a graphic description (mercifully brief) of the poor animal's digestive upsets and the husband's understandable frustration. Can't the well-heeled Navarros pay for his stay in an upscale kennel? Some services would even drop off the dog and pick him up.
Ms. Garcia-Aguilera should consult equally delightful mystery writers Carol Lea Benjamin and Susan Conant.

And Harper-Collins -- a very fine house -- slipped up on the dust jacket, identifying Esmerelda as the oldest and most sensible of the siblings. Between the covers, she's the middle child who combines commonsense with availability: sister Ruby, a lawyer, was getting ready to start a trial.

Minor quibbles! Luck of the Draw is the perfect book for a hot summer day, especially if you've ever spent time in South Florida.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Garcia-Aguilera comes up with another ace!, August 1, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Luck of the Draw: A Novel (Hardcover)

I really liked this book, and recommend it to anyone who has enjoyed Garcia-Aguilera's writing in the past. I miss Lupe, but the characters introduced in Luck of the Draw are just as funny and interesting. I had no idea that there were so many Cubans in Las Vegas. Ms. Garcia Aguilera, if there are any in Topeka let me know where they hang out!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoughts of a Gringa., July 14, 2003

By 

"hschulz31" (Coral Gables, FL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Luck of the Draw: A Novel (Hardcover)

I am a gringa living in Miami, and I confess that I consistently look to Carolina Garcia-Aguilera for insight into the people that make up this vibrant and colorful city!

Garcia again delivers with "Luck of the Draw" and the story of Esmeralda. Hilarious!