I’m not exactly sure why I’m attracted to this cover. Sometimes perhaps simpler is best. The cover design is attributed to Michael Accordino. Google suggests that he was the art director at Simon & Schuster at the time.

POCKET. Paperback reprint, November 1999. Hardcover first edition: Simon & Schuster, May 1998. The same cover design was used for each.

      From the back cover:

   Attorney Willa Jansson has finally managed to unload some of her sixties baggage, but her rebellious mother can’t seem to mellow out. When Mom heads for Cuba with a band of graying “brigadistas” Willa figures it’s just a pilgrimage to lefty Graceland. But then the rest of the group returns without her mother, and Willa fears the worst. Risking disbarment for “trading with the enemy” she rushes to the rescue — and discovers that her mother may have finally gotten into more trouble than she can get herself out of.

   In a deadly game of cat and mouse, Willa follows her mother’s path from Havana to Mexico City, from California back to Havana, getting manipulated, misled, and nearly arrested along the way. Soon she finds two angry governments, at least one ruthless killer, and her old flame, Lieutenant Surgelato, are hot on her trail. Racing against time, Willa realizes that, much more than politics and police work, it is intuition that will help her find her mother — and those things that only a daughter knows.