Pronto also is set partially in Miami Beach, and Harry Arno, its main character, lives in Maurice Zola's former apartment in the Delia Robbia Hotel.

Arno recalls that when Zola died a year or so after marrying Jean Shaw, she sold the place to a gangster, Jimmy Capotorto, and like the other Art Deco hotels in the neighborhood, it has been renovated since Zola's day. Some of the characters in LaBrava are clones of figures in other books, for example, Nobles recalls Raymond Gidre (Unknown Man No. 89) and Roland Crowe (Gold Coast, 1980), and Jane Shaw echoes Nancy Hayes (The Big Bounce, 1969) and Karen DiCilia (Gold Coast).