NIGHT ON FIRE

A Hawaiian honeymoon ends abruptly when the bride’s accused of killing the groom on their wedding night.

Honolulu attorney Kevin Corvelli was only one of the many witnesses who saw and heard Erin Simms tell off her husband Trevor at the Kupulupulu Beach Resort just hours after they tied the knot in front of a small circle of close friends, one of whom Trevor had just confessed to sleeping with. When an arson fire engulfs the Liholiho Tower that night, Kevin and the cougar he’s picked up are lucky to escape with their lives. So is Josh Leffler, the 4-year-old boy Kevin rescues from the blaze, and Erin herself. Fourteen others aren’t so lucky. Det. John Tatupu and ambitious prosecutor Luke Maddox zero in on Trevor as the intended victim; turns out he was the only one to be stabbed to death before the fire was set. Now Kevin, whose favorite two words are “not guilty” and whose favorite three words are “on the house,” finds himself with a double dilemma. Erin not only wants him to defend her against a charge supported by a mountain of evidence, she wants an altogether closer relationship. And his cougar pickup turns out to be freelance writer Sherry Beagan, who smells a book deal in this unholy mess. Outmaneuvered at the bail hearing, cold-shouldered by his friends in the D.A.’s office and facing the wrath of his senior partner Jake Harper, Kevin has only one route back to respectability: prove his client innocent.

Despite his susceptibility to anything in a skirt—and that includes his improbable interlude with Miss Hawaii—Kevin (One Man’s Paradise, 2010) tries a mean case and tells a fine story.