A lightweight but entertaining Hawaiian whodunit.
Hughes (Hanging Ten in Paris, 2011, etc.) places his Hawaii-based surfing detective Kai Cooke in the middle of two cases involving untimely deaths.
“Sherlock Holmes had his pipe—I have my surfboard,” claims private investigator Cooke as he surfs not far from his Honolulu office. Cooke’s business card reads “Surfing Detective: Confidential Investigations—All Islands.” Far from dressing elegantly in a trench coat and deerstalker hat, he has one black aloha shirt for very special occasions but probably no long pants or shoes with laces. In this latest installment, Cooke works for two clients: The first is a law firm investigating a car accident in which 21-year-old twin sisters were killed along with a very drunk acquaintance; the second is a former beauty queen who fears that someone (or something) is out to kill her much older husband, Rex Ransom, the former CEO of a geothermal energy company much reviled by locals. Other top executives from Ransom Geothermal Enterprises have been found dead in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, on the island of Hilo. Ransom’s wife, Donnie, fears that the deaths were orchestrated by Madame Pele, the powerful goddess of fire and volcanoes, and that her husband will be her next victim. She hires Cooke to covertly guard her husband from attack while he visits the volcanoes, but Cooke fails in his mission—and finds overwhelming evidence that Pele is the most likely perpetrator. After the mystery is solved, Cooke’s love life gets back on track, and he rewards himself by going surfing with his favorite dog. The story reveals the killers through rather pedestrian detective work and somewhat obvious plot developments. However, the landscape and characters are consistently colorful, and the story glides along at a satisfying clip. Cooke appealingly lapses into the indigenous patois when talking to other locals, dropping phrases such as “[g]o figgah,” “latahs” and “hang-loose.” Hughes effectively uses the native Hawaiian language throughout and also provides vivid descriptions of the legendary island scenery.
A lightweight but entertaining Hawaiian whodunit.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-0982944448
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Slate Ridge Press
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It's hard to read but hard to look away from.
When two women who share a birthday meet, a journalist becomes the subject of her own true-crime mystery.
On their 45th birthdays, Josie Fair and Alix Summer meet at a pub and discover they were born not only on the same day, but in the same hospital. Alix is a successful journalist, and Josie convinces Alix that her story is worth telling: Josie met her husband when she was 13 and he was 40. “I can see that maybe I was being used, that maybe I was even being groomed?” she confesses to Alix. “But that feeling of being powerful, right at the start, when I was still in control. I miss that sometimes. I really do. And what I’d like, more than anything, is to get it back.” From this premise Alix creates a Netflix series, Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin! which investigates Josie’s life as she reconciles what happened to her as a teen and seeks a new path. With the story unfinished, the narrative unfolds in the present tense, with prose that jingles like song lyrics: “He turns to see if the girl is behind him, and sees her wishy-washy, wavy-wavy, in double vision through the glass windows of the hotel.” Alix is both intrigued and repulsed by Josie, but she initially gives her the benefit of the doubt. After all, Alix’s husband, Nathan, has a drinking problem, and Alix knows what it’s like to be reluctant to leave a bad situation. But Josie seems more interested in being part of Alix’s seemingly glamorous life than she is in fixing her own, and when three people end up dead and Alix’s life is turned upside down, the evidence points to Josie—and turns the TV series into a murder mystery. Transcripts from Alix’s interviews alternate with the narrative, offering increasingly varied perspectives on Josie’s story as told by her neighbors, friends, and family members. With so many versions of events, the ending shatters, leaving readers to decide whose is the truth.
It's hard to read but hard to look away from.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2023
ISBN: 9781982179007
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
A tale that’s hard to believe but easy to swallow in a single gulp.
A bear is hunting prey in Wyoming’s Bighorns. And not just any bear.
It’s bad enough that Clay Hutmacher, who manages the Double Diamond Ranch, has lost his son, Clay Jr., to a vicious attack by a grizzly bear. What’s much worse is that Clay Jr.—who’d been about to pop the question to game warden Joe Pickett’s daughter, Sheridan—is only the first of the victims over an exceptionally broad geographical area. Marshal Marvin Bertignolli is clawed and bitten to death over in Hanna. Sgt. Ryan Winner is found bleeding out north of Rawlins. Former Twelve Sleep County prosecutor Dulcie Schalk, one of two survivors of an ambush, doesn’t survive her final encounter. The four experts chosen to kill the grizzly rope Joe into their expedition, but since their quarry keeps turning up far from the last sighting, the most meaningful confrontation the Predator Attack Team has is with a pair of Mama Bears, animal rights activists who demand due process for Tisiphone, as they’ve dubbed the presumed killer. Box, who’s far too canny to leave Tisiphone alone on center stage, follows Joe’s old antagonist Dallas Cates as the ex–rodeo star is released from prison and embarks on his revenge tour, which takes him to Lee Ogburn-Russell, an inventor whose life Dallas saved, and Axel Soledad, a correspondent who shares so many enemies with Dallas that he suggests they go after them together. Franchise fans will appreciate new details about Joe’s complicated family, the obligatory high-country landscapes, and yet another corrupt law enforcer.
A tale that’s hard to believe but easy to swallow in a single gulp.Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780593331347
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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