THE KOA KANE SERIES: 1 – 3...Death of a Messenger; Off the Grid; & Fire and Vengeance

DEATH OF A MESSENGER (Koa Kāne Hawaiʻian Mystery #1)
ROBERT McCAW
Oceanview Publishing (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$3.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Someone’s found a body at Pohakuloa, the army’s live-fire training area. Bearing all the marks of ancient ritual sacrifice—the murder is the grisliest of Detective Koa Kane's career.

The bizarre case draws Koa deep into his own Hawaiian roots. As Koa probes the victim’s past, he must sort through a rich roster of suspects—grave robbers, native activists, thieves, and star gazers. Koa surmounts a host of obstacles as he pursues the murderer—an incompetent local medical examiner, hostility from haoles (Westerners) and sovereignty advocates, and myriad lies.

Did the victim stumble upon a gang of high-tech archaeological thieves? Or did he learn a secret so shocking it cost him his life and put others, too, in mortal danger? Will Hilo’s most respected native detective catch this fiend in time, or will the killer strike again—with even deadlier consequences?

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Pohakuloa Live Firing Range near Hilo, Hawaiʻi, is a place men go to practice their killing techniques, but not a place where dead men are usually found. This day is the exception.

The dead man is not military, so the nearest civilian authority is called to the scene. Hilo detective Koa Kane gets the job, seniority demands it; after, of course, the Army certifies the crime scene is free of live munitions. Koa starts with the victim's identity...no mean feat, with the grotesque and detailed damage done to him. From there a truly vast web of interconnected lines of relationships, a cast of what feels like dozens but isn't quite, and a lot of the stuff of Koa's ordinary life get chucked at the reader's head. Every step of the way Hilo is a palpable presence ("Far off to the west, trails of vaporous mist played eerily over the deeply shadowed valley where night had already fallen bewtween the Hawaiian mountains. Across the channel, Haleakala on Maui seemed to rise from the mists of some unseen netherworld. Hues of red, orange, yellow and pink glorified the darkening sky"), enough description given to bring the reder to the place the action's happening but never enough to make us feel we could get off a plane, into a car, and drive there without a map app. (Thank goodness, as I was not in the mood for that!)

As book one in a series I expect as author's hobbyhorses to show up. I'd say they did: Hawaiʻian culture, history, and archaeology, astronomy, a strong focus on Native Hawaiʻian rights and political grievances, and to my disappointment a condescending attitude towards fragile, pretty "girls."

Exercise tolerance for that, and escape to a truly fascinating place is on tap. A decent mystery with a lot to say; more will be sought by me!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

OFF THE GRID (Koa Kāne Hawaiʻian Mystery #2)
ROBERT McCAW
Oceanview Publishing(non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$3.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Perfect for fans of James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux

A scrap of cloth fluttering in the wind leads Hilo police Chief Detective Koa Kāne to the tortured remains of an unfortunate soul, left to burn in the path of an advancing lava flow. For Koa, it’s the second gruesome homicide of the day, and he soon discovers the murders are linked. These grisly crimes on Hawaiʻi’s Big Island could rewrite history—or cost Chief Detective Koa Kāne his career.

The dead, a reclusive couple living off the grid, turn out to be mysterious fugitives. The CIA, the Chinese government, and the Defense Intelligence Agency attempt to thwart Koa’s investigation and obscure the victims’ true identities. Undeterred by mounting political pressure, Koa pursues the truth only to find himself drawn into a web of international intrigue.

While Koa investigates, the Big Island scrambles to prepare for the biggest and most explosive political rally in its history. Despite police resources stretched to the breaking point, Koa uncovers a government conspiracy so shocking its exposure topples senior officials far beyond Hawaiʻi’s shores.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Koa Kāne is a grouchy mensch. He looks at the obstructive efforts of people enmeshed in concerns that a detective with compassion and justice as his moral poles and can't be bothered to respect their shibboleths. Two people are dead. Their deaths were not natural or kind. He feels it incumbent on himself to make the guilty parties in this dreadful death-fest accountable. What could the dead guy possibly have done to merit someone immersing him in Kilauea's ever-flowing lava?!

No one will make it easy, as he learns when visiting the scene of a woman's death for the first time and damn near dying as the truck that hit the victim's car seems to cause a nearby vehicle to explode out of nowhere. He survives but that will sure as hell get a man's undivided attention after the murder by lava.

Establishing the link between them accomplished it becomes clearer that these victims were in some giant, far-reaching trouble involving international espionage, political skulduggery, and a side helping of maybe terrorism? The sheer amount of overt discouragement applied to Koa by local poerbrokers and the various security conccerns surrounding a governor's race rally being held in Koa's patch means his signature stubborn refusal to stop when told to is high-risk behavior.

Hawaiʻian indigenous culture, language, and history are present in this story though, as expected, there are only tenuous links to the highly populated story for much of it. I can't give perfect scoring to the story because some characters came and went before I could even figure out what the heck they had to do with anything (not much) and most of those were among the Hawaiʻian characters...well...at least I felt less annoyed by the misogyny. Because there were fewer women.

Well worth considering in #Deathtober reading days.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

FIRE AND VENGEANCE (Koa Kāne Hawaiʻian Mystery #3)
ROBERT McCAW
Oceanview Publishing (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$3.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A heinous conspiracy—a volcano exacting revenge—an island paradise in anguish Having killed his father's nemesis and gotten away with it, Hilo, Hawaiʻi Chief Detective Koa Kane, is not your ordinary cop. Estranged from his younger brother, who has been convicted of multiple crimes, he is not from a typical law enforcement family. Yet, Koa's secret demons fuel his unwavering drive to pursue justice.

Never has Koa's motivation been greater than when he learns that an elementary school was placed atop a volcanic vent, which has now exploded. The subsequent murders of the school's contractor and architect only add urgency to his search for the truth.

As Koa's investigation heats up, his brother collapses in jail from a previously undiagnosed brain tumor. Using his connections, Koa devises a risky plan to win his brother's freedom. As Koa gradually unravels the obscure connections between multiple suspects, he uncovers a forty-year-old conspiracy. When he is about to apprehend the perpetrators, his investigation suddenly becomes entwined with his brother's future, forcing Koa to choose between justice for the victims and his brother's freedom.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I really did not find this plot remotely credible...a school built over a fumarole? in HAWAIʻI, world capital of active volcanoes amid populated areas? not buyin' it...but I decided to move ahead with my read accepting the premise with a snort.

Then, after the hideous tragedy occurs, Koa is going to have to make the perpetrators of the negligence publicly accountable for their crime's hideous loss of life. The fact that there is not, at present, Chief of Police in Hilo means the buck stops with Koa. All the Chief of Detectives has to do is follow back the trail of documents forty years and figure out where the lying and covering up started while there's major politicking and finger-pointing going on, and everyone who ever touched this land and construction faud is pretty shifty, pretty slimy, and looks really really guilty.

Another moment where Koa will fail to do the politic thing because it is decidedly not the right thing. Of course by book three we're not the least surprised by this. I know I wasn't anyway. But what surprised me a lot was Koa going to the finest knife edge of the law to help his obnoxious criminally guilty brother. I can understand it, given that it's literally life and death. But it was so extreme, so complete a shift from the troubled relationship of their shared past, that it caused me to pause and look over the story...something niggled at me. I'm not seeing something important, I said inside my head.

Then the boom got lowered, it was ugly, and set up one of the most fun endings in the series to date. Unbelievable like the rest of the story, but entirely self-consistent, and as mentioned fun. Just not credible.

And I do not care. Fun to be had, y'all, and whatever the publisher tells you, you need to read the books in order.