Had it with wind, winter, and the dark? A Hawai`i vacation might be just what you need. Albert Tucher’s new Big Island Mystery, Pele’s Prerogative, provides plenty of local colour to make you think you’ve vacationed in that island paradise, but without jet-lag or the dent in your family budget! This is the fourth book in his Big Island Mystery series; we’ve previously reviewed another of them, Blood Like Rain, as well as a 2017 thriller involving some of the same characters, The Place of Refuge.
Pele is the goddess of volcanoes and fire. She created the Hawaiian Islands and is still present according to the local religion. And she’s not done creating. Kilauea is an active volcano on the Big Island, one of the most active on the planet. As I write this, one eruption just finished, with another one expected in a few days. But volcanoes’ effects aren’t limited to spewing molten lava. The flowing lava also creates lava tubes under the surface, akin to cave systems, and this phenomenon is closely tied to Tucher’s story.
Hawai`i County Officer Jenny Freitas works in the Department’s Hilo Division, on the east side of the Big Island. Assigned to make a welfare check on 73-year-old Langston Otsaka, she finds him dead at the bottom of a lava tube in his back yard, and nearly goes tumbling down after him. The wound on the back of his head suggests it wasn’t an accidental fall, which is confirmed by the medical examiner.
Jenny’s superior, Detective Errol Coutinho, expects her to be a detective someday and lets her take the lead on investigating this death. Tucher does a convincing job showing her learning – her hesitancy, her nailing some interviews and conducting some not so well. But Jenny is a force, moving forward, inexorably, sort of like the lava flowing down to the sea.
One of the both realistic and fascinating aspects of Tucher’s Hawai`i stories is that he acknowledges and portrays the many cultural differences within the islands’ population. Their differences in language, history, culture, religion and varying attitudes toward the police and crime are integral to Coutinho and Freitas’s investigations. You can’t ask certain questions, and to get answers, the right person has to ask.
Rumours soon surface about Otsaka’s long-ago wife and son. Finding them is a priority, but no one seems to know where they are, aside from vague references to Las Vegas on the mainland. Equally tantalising rumours emerge that Otsaka was sitting on a hidden fortune. At last, a compelling motive for murder.
Another mystery upsetting Otsaka’s neighbours is the destruction of a stone cairn of the type used in Native Hawaiian religious rituals. It appears that someone’s messing with traditions that the older generations are struggling to preserve. That’s not easy, when criminal drug dealers think of the island as theirs. In fact, drugs may be the way Otsaka amassed his purported fortune.
During the course of the investigation, Jenny and a partner are sent to the Kona Division to make inquiries there. Kona is a several-hour drive for them, on the island’s west side. They know Kona as the home of famous resorts and great coffee, but what they don’t find out until after they’ve arrived is that it’s where Otsaka’s former wife Cindy is hanging out, working in a coffee bar.
This is a fairly short book – only 133 pages – but it’s carefully plotted and packs in a lot of action. The personalities of the principal characters shine through, for better or worse. And, as the opening above suggests, the abundance of local colour may make you feel like you’ve had a pleasant escape from the January doldrums.
Also see Murder on the Island by Daisy White or The Corpse with the Pearly Smile by Cathy Ace.
Shotgun Honey Books
Print/Kindle
£4.00
CFL Rating: 4 Stars
