FIRE AND VENGEANCE

 4 stars out of 5

The description intrigued me - and I'm always up for

a new-to-me series - so I happily accepted the publisher's invitation to read it. Now I've finished, and I found it to be an interesting, and for many reasons unique, plot.

I do have to say that reading it was a bit of a struggle for me, given that I'm almost totally unfamiliar with Hawaiian given and surnames. In part, that's my bad; after all, Hawaii has been a U.S. state since 1959 (the year I graduated from high school, in fact). That this many years later the only words and people from Hawaii I knew going into this were "aloha," "mahalo" and Daniel Inouye doesn't exactly put me in a very good light. Still, the abundance of characters and the frequently interspersed Hawaiian phrases made the reading slower than my usual speed of light (notably, though, the meanings of those phrases are always explained).

I'm not sure where the book falls in the series - Amazon calls it No. 2 and Goodreads says No. 3 - but it seemed to me to stand alone quite well. The star of the show is Detective Koa Kane, who, as the official description says, isn't from "a typical law enforcement family." For one thing, he's a murderer who never got caught; for another, his younger brother has been in trouble with the law ever since he was a child and currently is in jail with four more years to go on his sentence.

The story begins with an horrific blast: The sudden eruption of a volcano that's still classified as active but has been quiet for 200 years. When it blew this time, it took with it most of a school that was built recently right at the top (I know, I can't fathom why anyone would do that either, but then Hawaiians are far more used to living with volcanoes than I am). Some children and teachers were killed in the blast; making matters worse, though, is the realization that someone - or several someones - involved in the building process knew that the school would be situated right over a volcanic vent (fumerole) and tried to cover it up with concrete.

As the investigation heats up, Kane gets another blow: His brother collapses in jail, and afterward it is learned that he has a previously undiagnosed brain tumor. That, in turn, leads Kane to split his efforts between solving what has become a crime at the school and trying to get his brother an early release from prison. And at the outset, both become seemingly impossible tasks.

He may be down - especially when conspiracy rears its ugly head - but he's not out. From this point on, the action picks up on both fronts; on the negative side, it's hard for him to tell the bad guys and gals from the good. On the positive side, he's got several loyal friends and sources who are well qualified, and willing, to help. All in all, an enjoyable book - and I look forward to the next one.

Fire and Vengeance by Robert McCaw (Oceanview Publishing, May 2020); 353 pp.