John Lantigua Books In Order

Publication Order of Willie Cuesta Mystery Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

John Lantigua is an American published author of novels in the fiction and nonfiction genres. He is a novelist and an award winning journalist. He lives in Florida.

Lantigua was born in New York in the Bronx in 1947. Both of his parents spoke Spanish and his neighborhood was one where Spanish was the main language that you would be hearing on the street. His mother hailed from Puerto Rico while his father came from Matanzas in Cuba. While growing up in his early years, the author would speak just Spanish, but at four years old that changed. His family moved to New Jersey and there in Ridgewood John would learn English as well.

Lantigua got started in journalism and kicked off his career at Connecticut’s biggest newspaper, The Hartford Courant. He was just 21 years old at the time. He would cover stories concerning the populations of African Americans and Puerto Ricans in Hartford for around three years. When he was 25 years old, he chose to move to Oaxaca in Mexico. There he worked in the Sierra Madre for two years as a mountain guide, serving as the leader of tourist camping trips. He would live in the city for two years, teaching theater and English. He also belonged to the city’s theater company, El Grupo Rodolfo Alvarez.

The author decided to get back into journalism in 1982. He would work in Honduras for the next year for United Press International. Then he would move to Nicaragua to work for 1983 to 1984. The author then decided to report for other publications, including The Washington Post, out of Nicaragua until 1985. He would report there on the Contra War, writing at the same time from Costa Rica and El Salvador.

He would also work as a reporter on general assignments for The Miami Herald starting in 1993 and ending in 1998. He would also make up an investigative team member and the team would win a Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for its work on investigative reporting, concerning their covering the corruption that went on in the mayoral election of Miami and voter fraud in 1997.

1999 all the way to 2002 saw him freelancing. This would give him the chance to cover the Miami scandal of the Elian Gonzalez story for Salon. He would also work for The Nation covering the controversy over the Bush and Gore election. He also wrote about the presence of the terrorists of 9/11 in Florida for the publication Newsweek. He was reporting based out of Miami for the Palm Beach Post in 2002, writing mostly about immigration. He also wrote about getting through the desert of Arizona being smuggled to Florida, part of an article series that earned him the Kennedy Award as well as the Chapin World Hunger Year Prize.

The same team would also make a 2005 series regarding injuries and birth defects caused by the influence of pesticides, mostly among Floridian field hands (many of whom were immigrants). This won him the Hispanic Journalists and Kennedy awards. It also led to massive alterations in the laws that see over pesticide use.

He has also won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for the year 2004 and the year 2006, and the same for his National Hispanic Journalists Award regarding his work on investigative reporting covering immigration issues for The Palm Beach Post. He has also served as a journalist and investigates topics since 2017 for the ACLU of Florida.

Lantigua first came into print with the publication of his fictional novel Heat Lightning in 1987. The book focused on San Franciscan killings of individuals in the Salvadoran community. It would be nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award in 1988 for the best first novel and placed as a finalist. His novel Burn Season came out in 1989 and three years later his novel Twister would be published.

John Lantigua is the creator and author of the Willie Cuesta mystery series of fictional novels. He was inspired to write the series thanks to his time working at the Miami Herald. The series started in 1999 with the publication of the debut novel, Player’s Vendetta. The series focuses on a private investigator. Willie Cuesta is Cuban-American and lives in Miami. The second novel is The Ultimate Havana, published 2001. His 2007 third installment of the series is titled The Lady From Buenos Aires and it won an International Latino Book Award. His fourth book also won that award. On Hallowed Ground was published in 2011.

Player’s Vendetta is the original debut novel in the Willie Cuesta mystery series by author John Lantigua. If you are looking for a unique mystery novel to sink your teeth into, this one is it!

Willie is a Cuban American as well as a private investigator. In this story, Cuesta makes his way through the Little Havana area of Miami. His reason for being in this colorful area of town? To track down the missing boyfriend of a woman.

The reason that he is missing is apparently because he has gone on a vengeful hunt. He’s driven by desperation and the desire for justice to track down a killer. Can Willie get to the man before he gets into too much trouble himself? Find out in this thriller from author John Lantigua!

The Ultimate Havana is the second novel in the Willie Cuesta Mystery series by author John Lantigua. The private eye is back in this sequel and better than ever!

He’s got a new gig as well. Cuesta has been hired to try and track down Carlos Espada. The man is the son of a famous manufacturer of cigars that has now gone missing.

Willie is doing everything that he can to try and find Carlos, and in the process stumbles onto a rivalry between two large tobacco companies that are vying against each other. He also finds a cigar ring of counterfeits that may have involved Carlos, and in the end, discovers a murder. How will things turn out and will this private investigator get to the bottom of things? Pick up The Ultimate Havana to find out!