Death of a Messenger by Robert McCaw is one book that will keep you reading until late in the night. I was intrigued by the language, descriptions, and the characters developed by the writer. A 911 call tells of a body that was found in Pohakuloa where the Army has a live fire testing site. It becomes clear that the body had been part of an ancient ritual sacrifice and had been tortured. The medical examiner was useless and was not providing any type of information to the police as to what actually happened to the deceased. Could the victim caused his own death after stumbling upon an ancient artifact? Or was it someone or something that he saw and they wanted him kept quiet. This book is well written and very descriptive. The beauty of the area is told very eloquently. This is a great thriller.

Thank you to netgalley as well as the author for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

This was an unusual book. I haven't read others in this series but going by this one, I probably won't. I can't really say I liked the book but didn't especially dislike it either. There were parts that were good - - some interesting facts about Hawaii and Hawaiians, and history. The story moved slowly in places then suddenly extreme action. It seemed like a lot was just thrown in to complete the book. The characters were ok - though not particularly believable to me.

It's a little difficult to describe what I thought of this book without giving too much away. I can say that I learned a little about Hawaii and the Hawaiian heritage. There was lots happening, and it was complex. Following the story from the time a body was discovered in a remote area and through to the end with the capture of the suspect, I did find it an interesting read. This was the first time I've read a book by this author, and I will most likely read his other books. Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

cultural-heritage, cultural-exploration, procedural, law-enforcement, Hawaii, archaeologist, artifact, astronomy, telescope, suspense*****

How can you lose reading this! Hawaiian culture and legends, police procedural, astronomers with a world class telescope, an amazing archaeologist, lava tubes, and a gruesome murder. The due diligence was excruciating and there was so much ancillary information that I got lost in it and almost missed the significance of some of the red herrings. And don't forget the sneaky plot twists. The characters were well done and all too believable. It grabbed me in the morning and held on all day until it was finished! Hope there are more to come!
I requested and received a free temporary ebook from Oceanview Publishing via NetGalley. Thank you!

When I requested Death of a Messenger by Robert McCaw and began reading, I was initially intrigued by the premise. The book starts with a body found in an interesting and unique setting, a lava tube in Hawaii. McCaw does a good job describing this setting in a rich way.

Unfortunately, McCaw buries this interesting premise under too much backstory, info-dump, and overdone tropes. I found this both interesting and annoying. Interesting in that this novel is the prequel to a series, so I would think much of this information was woven into books in the series. Having not read the other books, I can’t be sure of this. As a reader of just this book, the information was disruptive, as it did not contribute to my understanding of this plot, and pulled me out of the story.

The relationships the main character has with those around him are not well developed. Kane’s girlfriend is presented as a perfect trophy (who Kane offers to step in and protect when she faces challenges at work), while other characters are mostly two-dimensional combatants often described in negative ways. In the end, I ended up feeling that the main character was a judgmental man, and a bit of a bully.

In particular, I did not enjoy the ending of the book. To me, it felt both far fetched and full of all-powerful-man tropes.

While this book might appeal to some readers, it was definitely not for me. I will not be reading other books in this series, as the main character is not someone I want to spend more time with.

My knowledge of Hawaii begins and ends with the remake of the TV series Hawaii 5-0. This book was a lot more detailed, more interesting and more entertaining than that series. As well as knowing little about Hawaii I have no knowledge of archaeology or astronomy, but it didn’t stop me enjoying this novel.

Whilst I have no knowledge of archaeology I found this aspect of the novel fascinating, I’m not sure I would like to discover some of the finds, they were a little creepy and intimidating but the author did a wonderful job of showing how important they were to those who have an interest. I enjoyed reading about the history of Hawaii, the way of life and the often antagonistic attitude between Hawaii and the United States. It was something I had never considered, but it was believable

Koa, the lead detective in this novel was a character I warmed to straight away. Like many before him he had a skeleton in his closet, but he lived his life trying to make amends for what he did. I found him to be devoted and protective towards his partner, loyal to his friends and respectful of Hawaiian history and culture.

There were plenty of red herrings, quite a few dubious characters who could have been the murderer and I liked trying to work out who it could be. I was incorrect but the ending worked perfectly.

What appears as a ritual sacrifice, Hawaii Detective Koa faces an investigation like no other he has seen. A grisly crime scene with a body found in the Army training area leads the detective to think this was a ancient ritual sacrifice. A host of characters are introduced with suspicious motives and backgrounds. It comes down to dissecting the victim's background and the connection with the suspects and leaving well-respected Koa's reputation in tact. The most fascinating facts about Hawaii are dispersed making this an interesting read about the sacred grounds and the island's rituals. I loved the ending! This made a great mystery to solve for all of us reading detectives.
Since it is a series, I'm ready for the next one. Thanks NetGalley for the opportunity to read this for exchange of my honest review.

"Journey deep into the exotic locales of Hawaii’s Big Island to discover its language, culture - and crime.

On Hawaii Island, an anonymous 911 caller reports a body at Pohakuloa, the Army’s live-fire training area. Hilo Chief Detective Koa Kane, a cop with his own secret criminal past, finds a mutilated corpse - bearing all the hallmarks of ancient ritual sacrifice.

He encounters a host of obstacles as he pursues the murderer - an incompetent local medical examiner, hostility from both haoles (Westerners) and sovereignty advocates, and a myriad of lies. Koa races to discover whether the victim stumbled upon a gang of high-tech archaeological thieves, or learned a secret so shocking it cost him his life and put others in mortal danger.

Will Hilo’s most respected detective stop this sadistic fiend - or will the Pohakuloa killer strike again, with even deadlier consequences?"

I might be suffering from severe Magnum withdrawals and this book kept me going!

It genuinely felt like this book was written by one person for the first 60% and another for the last 40%. Maybe this has something to do with the book being a reissue from 2015, telling the first chronological story of the Koa Kane Hawaiian Mystery series, and perhaps being updated for 2021. What I know for sure is that there's a definite cognitive dissonance from the first sixty percent, where Koa sounds like a moderately racist, moderately misogynistic white man in disguise, with the last forty where he wonders whether non-native Hawaiians have undergone sufficient sensitivity training in their professional fields for saying milder things than he himself has expressed or let pass without comment. I was certainly glad for the 180 in attitude, but it happened so abruptly that it made for really weird reading.

The story itself is alright: Koa Kane is a 40-something detective on the underfunded Hawaii police force, living with his seven years younger (tho the numbers get fiddly partway through the book for no discernible reason) partner, astronomer Nalani. He's worrying about budget cuts and a pinched nerve in his neck when a mutilated body is found in a lava tube on an army firing range. Investigations lead to such disparate factions as the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, as well as to archaeological black marketeers and the scientists up at Nalani's workplace, the (fictional) Alice Observatory located on the slopes of Mauna Kea. It's a wide-ranging look at current Hawaiian society and politics that serves as a fascinating introduction to the area. Did you know that Mauna Kea in winter features sub-arctic temperatures and snowfall? I sure didn't! In fact, I actively doubted what Robert B McCaw was telling me for the longest time because he did not acknowledge that snow is not something you'd expect in fricking Hawaii of all places! I don't expect to have my hand held in real world narratives but I do expect some awareness of out-group perspectives, tho I guess the constant disparaging allusions to an ob-gyn as a "baby doctor" (like, why is that disreputable? He helps bring children into the world. Is it because he does this by helping people with uteruses and heaven knows, <i>those</i> people aren't to be taken seriously?) after also saying, "The army probably killed his relatives during the war. At least, I hope so" about a Japanese-Hawaiian person who dislikes the military, are indicative of blissful lack of same. And then there's a weird bit in the afterword where I wondered whether somebody needed an explanation as to how sex can lead to pregnancy. I still also don't understand why Kane was so hostile to the sovereignty groups, likely because their aims are never really explained in comparison to the amount of scorn heaped on them. I'm fairly certain sovereignty groups aren't advocating for Hawaii to cut off all its electricity, as claimed in the book.

Trouble is, it's always important -- and <i>especially</i> when writing outside of your culture -- to make sure you have a firm grasp of all the perspectives you might be encountering and to present them all ethically, lest your writing fall on the side of propaganda. You don't have to be sympathetic to differing points of view, and you're certainly under no obligation to keep your personal views quiet, but you still have to explain key cultural/political motivations in your own narrative if you have any hope of making the reader understand what's going on. As far as I could gather from this novel, sovereignty activists want to go back to the old days by cutting off electricity but are hypocrites for... wearing cowboy boots? What cartoon villain nonsense is this?

I also feel that this would have been the kind of book which benefits from the author reading the dialog aloud to hear the naturalness of it or otherwise. I wasn't a huge fan of the pacing either: while nothing happening then everything happening all at once is realistic in terms of real life police work, it doesn't make for the most interesting reading, especially with an internally inconsistent main character. Maybe this series gets better as it goes, but in the meantime, if I'm looking for a Hawaiian police procedural, I'll probably stick to Debra Bokur's <a href="https://www.criminalelement.com/book-review-fire-thief-debra-bokur/">The Fire Thief</a>: she might also be a haole but at least her writing feels reflective of actual Hawaiians (and of women: good grief, the one-dimensional nature of the female characters in Death Of A Messenger!) Honestly, I would love recommendations for contemporary Hawaiian literature written by people born a/o raised in Hawaii, especially in the mystery genre. Comments are open, as always!

Death Of A Messenger by Robert B McCaw was published January 5th, 2021 by Oceanview Publishing and is available from all good booksellers, including <a href="https://bookshop.org/a/15382/9781608094035">Bookshop!</a> Want it now? For the Kindle version, <a href="https://amzn.to/3ozOlYX">click here</a>.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Oceanview Publishing for a review copy of Death of a Messenger, a prequel to the Koa Kane series, set on Hawai’i’s Big Island.

Chief of Detectives Koa Kane is summoned to a murder scene. The body of a young male has been found in a lava cone and appears to have been killed ritualistically. Identifying the body is difficult, identifying a motive even more so with so many in the mix, sovereign rights activists, antiquity smugglers and problems at work.

I enjoyed Death of a Messenger which is the first novel in the series that have I read. I never know if it is best in a series to follow the character or author’s timeline but this is a good introduction. It is told entirely from Koa’s point of view so it’s easy to get immersed in the narrative, follow his thinking and get a general feel for his character.

The plot is interesting, not just for events and the way it develops but for the light it shines on heritage issues in Hawai’i (I’m spelling it as it is in the novel). I am an inveterate fictional tourist so I picked to read this novel because I don’t know a lot (make that close to zero) about Hawai’i. The detail about antiquity looting, sovereign rights and native history was fascinating and gave me a better understanding of the place and the issues. I liked that Koa with native heritage but doing a haole, i.e. western, job is caught between two worlds, as was the victim. It makes the issues more immediate. The actual plot, finding a murderer is good and absorbing as Koa and his team run down possibilities, game the suspects and uncover other crimes along the way. I liked the way they are able to link separate events into a cohesive whole.

I would like to say that there is never a dull moment in the novel but there is a lot of science involved as the victim works in astronomy at the telescope at Mauna Kea. It went straight over my head. Also I found myself confused by the Hawaiian place names. This is no fault of the author, simply my inability to process unfamiliar words.

Death of a Messenger is a good read that I have no hesitation in recommending.
P

If you follow me either here on the blog or on instagram (@speakingof_books), you will know that Mysteries and Detective series are my bread and butter. I love them. I love getting to know the characters and following their careers. I mean Law & Order SUV is my favorite show, so of course I love a good crime series.

I’ll be honest and say I thought this was going to be a 3 star read while reading the first part of the book. I wasn’t super into it, mainly because there were a lot of Hawaiian references that I just did not understand. That learning curve really took away from the story for me at first and made the pacing quite slow. However, as we go through the story and I became more familiar with the Hawaiian culture, I started to really appreciate the added references. The first half of the book was almost information overload with all the names of gods and places. I even stopped and did a little research on some of those referenced to try and get a better grasp on the history. I’ve been to Hawaii twice but their culture is so rich in myths and lore that as an outside it’s hard to truly understand the range and impact it has had on the Island.

The history of the Islands comes in perfect into the plot of the story. While there are two separate cases going on throughout the story, they nice into each other seamlessly. The antiquity black-market , the added astrology specifically related to the Alice Observatory, and of course an endless supply of suspects really brought this book together for me.

Character wise, Koa Kane, our detective is a bit clique at first, Which I generally don’t mind since the plot lines are more important to me in a crime book than unique characters. But Koa Kane has a ton of growth throughout this story and we really get a feel for his honor and loyalty to the Hawaiian culture.

This was not my favorite series I have read recently, but I would most certainly pick up the second book.

I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on Death of a Messenger. Huge thank you to Oceanview for my eARC for my honest opinion. If you liked this review please let me know either by commenting below or by visiting my instagram @speakingof_books.

Each of the Koa Kane Hawaiian mysteries can be read independently. The Hawaiian backdrop and history for the stories is beautiful.

Hawaii lends itself to totally different crimes and methods of murder, apparently. It is so interesting to observe Koa Kane and the rest of the characters unravel these crimes steeped in Hawaiin history and the unique landscape of volcanoes.

This book additionally looked at astronomy research being done on the island as an additional stage for competition and conflict. The scientific descriptions were detailed and sounded believable. The rich history of Hawaii was at the heart of each development in the story. Trying to discern who were the good guys and who were the bad guys was consuming and kept the pages turning in a race to get to the dramatic ending.

Overall, I’d give this book 3.5 out of 5 stars. This series would be easy to recommend to any reader who enjoys stories about Hawaii or police procedurals. I look forward to more books being released in this series.

Death of a Messenger is the prequel to the Koa Kane Hawaiian Mystery series, featuring Hook Hao, a police informant, Jimmy Hikorea, an archaeologist, Zeke Brown, the Hawaii County prosecutor, and Koa Kāne, the protagonist, set against the backdrop of exotic Hawaii. In the land of lava flows and black sand beaches, the Hilo cops get a mysterious 911 tip. Someone's found a body at Pohakuloa, the army's live-fire training area. In a lava tube inside a cave and mutilated beyond recognition, bearing all the hallmarks of a sadistic ancient ritual sacrifice, the murder is the grisliest of Detective Kāne’s career. It throws Hilo, Hawai‘i’s, Kāne into the throes of the Big Island’s cultural conflicts. Secrets and obstacles abound in this breathtaking island as Kāne desperately tries to identify both the victim and the killer—his suspicions high that the vicious killer will strike again. The cultural divide is wide—from royal burial vaults and ancient rituals to the advanced technology operating the world’s largest astronomical telescope. Dangerous secrets collide around Koa. Did the victim stumble into an archaeological treasure or an epic scientific discovery?

Nothing is what is seems and Koa must rely on instinct and cunning to zero in on the truth. 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? This is a compelling and captivating story with a complex plot, a richly described location that plays a substantial role in the overall tale and a thoroughly engrossing mystery that mixes murder with archaeology. Koa Kane, our central character and protagonist, is a multi-layered individual who has been given enough personality and backstory that he seems to come alive on the page. However, his fearless and dogged nature hides a dark secret from his past; he killed his father’s sworn enemy while he was an angsty teenager. McCaw weaves fascinating Hawaiian folklore and the history, culture and language of the island into the narrative, which I found refreshing, and it certainly added to the intrigue throughout. It all culminates in an unpredictable denouement and conclusion which felt well thought through. An entertaining, cerebral and unique read. Recommended.

This book was sent to me as an ARC on NetGalley. However, all opinions are of my own.
This book starts with an anonymous 911 call to report a dead body in a life size lava tank. Whilst the main deceptive, Koa, is trying to solve the case he comes across a lot of complicated situations.
Personally, I think the book was interesting and very meticulous- however, I did find it somewhat complicated which made me disconnect from the book,
I thought the whole story line and plot was different and I did enjoy that about it.

Exactly what I needed right now - an interesting and complicated case set in the beautiful landscapes of Hawaii.

While you might think a story set in Hawaii would be light and funny, or full of incredible James Bond-like events, it is not. Well, maybe there is a bit of the latter here, since the pace of this novel is quite fast, and it does not lack surprising twists and turns. Detective Koa Kane, the main character, has to solve a case of a brutal crime that bears the hallmarks of ritual murder and in which there is nothing fun and light. But this case fits perfectly with the atmosphere of the whole novel.

I love how closely this story is related to the history of Hawaii and the culture of its inhabitants. These elements spread through not only Koa's case, but even the way he conducts it and his interactions with other people. The atmosphere of Hawaii, the real ones, not the tourist sugar-coated picture, is almost an additional character in this book. This makes the whole story stand out from other similar ones. Especially since we see the real Hawaii, not the idealized image we often see in movies.

The plot is also very good. It’s very interesting and nicely elaborate. Gradually, we discover more threads and possible solutions, each of them exciting and equally satisfying. We also have a group of very remarkable suspects, each with a good motive to commit a crime. The solution to the story and the final scenes are very satisfying.

And finally, there is Koa Kane, the main character. At first, he seemed a bit clichéd, but quite quickly I started to get to know him better and see his value for this story. And while I still don't think Koa stands out as a character, I think he makes a fine element of this book. With every chapter, I more and more appreciated his keen mind, he is really smart. It's nice to watch him work. Everyone who, like me, does not like too much turbulence in the emotional life of the main characters will also be satisfied. Honestly, the murder case provides enough emotion.

This is a very good and interesting story not only for Hawaii lovers. I will seriously consider reading the next parts, I see a lot of potential in this series.

This is unlike other cop novels I've read, in terms of the writing. The imagery that the author brings to life is just unreal. Such a great twist to this genre. Would definitely recommend to someone who loves cop stories but also loves literary treasures.

Dnf,
Terrible just plain terrible, the writing was awfully, it reads like some preteens creative writing assignment that they don’t actually want to do.
Written by a white man from the perspective of a native Hawaiian, the author says he loves Hawaiian culture yet within the first few pages he calls Hawaiians savages.

While the ending of the story & the villain were a surprise, I didn't enjoy this book. For me, everything felt slighty off - I just can't quite put my finger on why, but it's there. I felt that the bad guys came across as Scooby Doo villains.

This book has a very interesting setting and great characters, but it's hopelessly slow and long winded. If you have the patience to read it all, you will also find that the main character didn't exactly do a good job of investigating.

An amazing read with great characters, tricky plot and a history lesson on Hawaii's islands.
Koa Kane is a police detective brought in to investigate a brutal murder. A victim has been found in a cave near ancient burial grounds, on military ground. The victim is unidentifiable and resembles a murder from 30 years earlier. Koa calls in a forensics specialist from the military to help and his girlfriend, Nalani suggests an archeologist to assist with the cave findings. In the process of processing the crime scene they find a workshop that dates back thousands of years and then find the burial site of an ancient Hawaiian king. There are many twists and turns and possible suggests. The motives to the murder are many also. Finally, Koa, with the help of his fellow detectives and other outsiders he has drawn in, find the identity of the man, the motive and then the killer.
Great read and can't wait to read more of Koa Kane.
#DeathofaMessenger #NetGalley