Liz Balmaseda’s fictional debut steals from headlines with identity theft, drugs and justice

Reporter’s fiction debut from headlines

“Sweet Mary” (Atria Books Hardcover, 242 pages, $24.99), by Liz Balmaseda: Real estate agent and single mom Mary Guevara is preparing for work when U.S. marshals suddenly show up at her door.

The next thing the heroine of “Sweet Mary” knows, she’s in handcuffs. The marshals have a warrant for her arrest on cocaine related charges. Never mind the name of the woman in the warrant doesn’t match Mary’s, nor does the suspect’s birthday or even her photo. None of that matters as Mary is led away, leaving her young son screaming.

Pulitzer-prize winning columnist Liz Balmaseda serves up only a brief introduction before she knocks readers in the gut with her fast-paced fictional debut, which is based on a true 2003 story.

The novel follows Mary’s frantic efforts to clear her name and reclaim her life.

Balmaseda is at her best with tight descriptions of South Florida in the mode of master Carl Hiassen: “The August steam rose from the Everglades and wrapped itself around the city with a vengeance.”

She also has fun with Miami’s quirky locals, including wayward European scofflaws, Cuban families and lecherous cowboys.

Balmaseda, herself a Cuban immigrant, draws a compelling portrait of Mary as a woman torn between her loud, working-class Cuban family and her dream of a quiet, assimilated middle-class existence.

Her story loses steam as Mary goes from outraged mother to amateur sleuth, and the ending smacks more Hollywood than noir. But perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Balmaseda originally wrote the story as a screenplay, and only later turned it into a novel. The book’s earlier incarnation is visible in the scene-setting chapter headings, as well as the bare bones feel of the novel’s later chapters — as if the author were waiting for a camera to breathe life into the descriptions.

Still, it’s a fun summer read. And it’s not often readers get to cheer a stylish Cuban-American soccer mom turned gun-toting detective.