(no subject)
Jul. 31st, 2010 01:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jennariaPRIMITIVE SECRETS: A HAWAIIAN MYSTERY, by Deborah Turrell Atkinson.
Cover copy: When Storm Kayama walks into her lucrative Honolulu law firm on morning, she's shocked -- and grieved -- to find her adopted uncle at his desk, stiff and cold. Years before, Miles Hamasaki had fulfilled a promise to Storm's father and brought her to be raised with his own family. But questions surround Hamasaki's death and her adopted family, though displaying internal rifts begins to close ranks as Storm's suspicions rise.
Heading to the Big Island for a weekend escape from escalating pressures, Storm narrowly escapes a terrible accident en route to her aunt's and uncles mountain home. There, with Maile, a traditional Hawaiian healer, and Keone, a paniolo on the huge Parker Ranch, Storm encounters a legend from her youth and a family totem, or aumakua, which will protect her -- and do it a damn sight better than modern medicine is looking after the firm's clients.
As Storm struggles to heal her own childhood wounds and bring justice to Hamasaki's killer, she also comes to grips with the rifts in her own life and culture.
From the winding cane roads of Hamakua to the seedy side of Honolulu's Chinatown, with a deft juxtaposition of a bustling Honolulu against the island's legends and wild beauty, Atkinson reveals a Hawai'i that few visitors ever see as she unfolds a clever, contemporary plot laced with island lore.
Gender of detective: Female (for a change!)
This one is actually a pleasant surprise, in more ways than one. There are soap opera elements (most notably the heroine's boyfriend discovered to be cheating on her), but while they're handled a bit, mmm, quickly, I still prefer that to it turning into a big Thing that is allowed to excuse the detective from seeing what's right in front of her face. There are supernatural elements, but they're treated with shivering uncertainty, the heroine as reluctant to admit to them as any other normal skeptical person. On the other hand, given that the supernatural elements are based in Hawaiian native legends and myths, they're still treated with respect, rather than making them into the author's plot-puppets.
There are also...how best to put this...a big part of the problems with Storm's adopted family is that one of her adoptive brothers is gay. She finds this out by following him down to the sleezy side of town, where she sees him dressed all in leather, and going into what she knows is a gay bar. And his lover? Is both drug addicted and HIV positive.
Yeah. Well.
The bright side is that this is not a large part of the plot, nor it is so much malicious and hateful as it's just sorta stereotypical. And the rest of the novel, particularly the native Hawaiian elements, is quite well written. It comes down to something similar to the Allingham just reviewed: how sensitive are you to certain subjects, and their being clumsily (if not mis-) handled?
*
Somehow I have been volunteered as Stef's plot bunny generator. Not that I mind, exactly, I'm just bemused.
Cover copy: When Storm Kayama walks into her lucrative Honolulu law firm on morning, she's shocked -- and grieved -- to find her adopted uncle at his desk, stiff and cold. Years before, Miles Hamasaki had fulfilled a promise to Storm's father and brought her to be raised with his own family. But questions surround Hamasaki's death and her adopted family, though displaying internal rifts begins to close ranks as Storm's suspicions rise.
Heading to the Big Island for a weekend escape from escalating pressures, Storm narrowly escapes a terrible accident en route to her aunt's and uncles mountain home. There, with Maile, a traditional Hawaiian healer, and Keone, a paniolo on the huge Parker Ranch, Storm encounters a legend from her youth and a family totem, or aumakua, which will protect her -- and do it a damn sight better than modern medicine is looking after the firm's clients.
As Storm struggles to heal her own childhood wounds and bring justice to Hamasaki's killer, she also comes to grips with the rifts in her own life and culture.
From the winding cane roads of Hamakua to the seedy side of Honolulu's Chinatown, with a deft juxtaposition of a bustling Honolulu against the island's legends and wild beauty, Atkinson reveals a Hawai'i that few visitors ever see as she unfolds a clever, contemporary plot laced with island lore.
Gender of detective: Female (for a change!)
This one is actually a pleasant surprise, in more ways than one. There are soap opera elements (most notably the heroine's boyfriend discovered to be cheating on her), but while they're handled a bit, mmm, quickly, I still prefer that to it turning into a big Thing that is allowed to excuse the detective from seeing what's right in front of her face. There are supernatural elements, but they're treated with shivering uncertainty, the heroine as reluctant to admit to them as any other normal skeptical person. On the other hand, given that the supernatural elements are based in Hawaiian native legends and myths, they're still treated with respect, rather than making them into the author's plot-puppets.
There are also...how best to put this...a big part of the problems with Storm's adopted family is that one of her adoptive brothers is gay. She finds this out by following him down to the sleezy side of town, where she sees him dressed all in leather, and going into what she knows is a gay bar. And his lover? Is both drug addicted and HIV positive.
Yeah. Well.
The bright side is that this is not a large part of the plot, nor it is so much malicious and hateful as it's just sorta stereotypical. And the rest of the novel, particularly the native Hawaiian elements, is quite well written. It comes down to something similar to the Allingham just reviewed: how sensitive are you to certain subjects, and their being clumsily (if not mis-) handled?
*
Somehow I have been volunteered as Stef's plot bunny generator. Not that I mind, exactly, I'm just bemused.