Lola’s back. The spicy, sassy PI, Delores “Lola” Cruz, returns home only to find her entire family mourning her death in Hasta la Vista, Lola! by Argyle author Misa Ramirez.

Misa Ramirez

View larger More photos Photo store

The second book in Ramirez’s mystery romance series features the novice Latina detective hot on the trail to find out who stole her identity.

Hot on her tail and anxious to help are two handsome men: hunky part-time heartthrob Jack and her dark-eyed, irresistible and intriguing boss, Manny. Who will get Lola first? Jack? Manny? Or the one who wants to see her dead?

If you liked writer Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum, you’ll love Lola. Another heroine with attitude, Lola’s got the kung fu moves of Xena the Warrior Princess mixed with a Sex in the City obsession with froufrou and shoes. And like Plum, she’s surrounded by a quirky cast of characters of family and friends who love her and keep her in line.

Hasta la Vista, Lola! hit the stores on Feb. 2, almost a year after Ramirez’s first novel from the Lola series, Living the Vida Lola, which took her six years to write — in between changing diapers, doing laundry and mothering five children, four of whom are boys.

Ramirez wanted to create a role model through her books for her daughter, who is in real-life a blend of two cultures, just like Lola.

“When I came up with the idea for this character, she came to me as this strong independent woman,” Ramirez said, with a foothold in both the traditions of her Mexican heritage and the modern American lifestyle. “Whenever I think about writing new books, I bring that into the characters.”

The Lola Cruz mysteries series is published by an imprint of St. Martin’s Press/

Thomas Dunne Books. Ramirez’s third book, Bare Naked Lola, is in the works, although its release date is not yet known. For updates and more information, visit www.misaramirez.com.

Hasta la Vista, Lola!

By Misa Ramirez.

262 pages (hardback),

Minotaur, $24.99.

An excerpt from Hasta la Vista, Lola! by Misa Ramirez (Minotaur, 2010), from the start of Chapter 1:

I can’t even begin to count the number of times my grandmother told me that she would die a happy woman if only I’d join the Order of the Benedictine Sisters of Guadalupe and live a chaste and holy life.

To which I always nodded, smiled, and said, “I want you to die happy, Abuela, pero I’m not going to become a nun.” There were several problems with me and a pious life. If you asked my mother, she’d say I’d sinned over and over and over again, beginning with premarital intercourse (which she suspected but had no actual proof of), and ending with my job. In my mother’s eyes, being a detective necessitates questionable actions and an “ends justifies the means” philosophy.

Which is not actually my philosophy. I do things by the book, and let my conscience be my guide. I was God-fearing so I tried to toe the line, but I was also a driven, independent woman walking a tightrope between modern American culture and my parents’ old-fashioned male-oriented Spanish culture so my conscience didn’t always know which way to go when I hit a fork in the road.