With characteristic spunk, veteran mystery ace Leslie Karst has dashed off the second book in her new Hawai’ian Island-based series, Waters of Destruction. Natural elements are wreaking havoc with her deceased victims, as well as with her resourceful investigators.
In her first Orchid Isle Mystery installment, Molten Death, Karst’s victim was knocked off by fire in the form of volcanic lava. In her new work, Karst’s victim turns up drowned. But as you can already foresee, things are seldom what they seem here in the laid-back Hawai’ian Islands.
Karst’s Waters of Destruction protagonist is the can-do Valerie Corbin, a former caterer newly ensconced on the Big Island of Hawai’i with her wife Kristen. Valerie knows her way around a restaurant, and Kristen is a pro with power tools and electrical wiring. Already friends with local restaurant manager Sachiko and her Native partner Isaac, these California transplants are anxious to make friendly connections with the locals and their volatile island ecosystem. Valerie says yes to every offer that comes her way, bartending, canoe paddling and, of course, sleuthing.
Readers familiar with this author’s swift-moving style will already guess that her protagonist is ready for anything, especially cocktails right on cue at the sunset hour. Dreaming up sexy island-appropriate cocktails keeps our protagonist busy when she finds herself subbing at the Speckled Gecko for one of Sachiko’s no-show bartenders. A dead no-show bartender.
While Kristen offers to help a friend remodel her house on the opposite side of the island, Valerie’s sleuthing skills not only land her in the center of an unsettling island death, but plenty of hot water as well. Readers who raise their eyebrows at the many coincidences that pepper the narrative just don’t have the right attitude of suspended disbelief that makes reading this book so much fun.
Waters of Destruction moves faster than a 20-foot pipeline, but not so fast that characters can’t be fleshed out; local dialects are used and described, and a sense of the islands’ humid atmosphere fills each page.
Karst knows how to keep those pages turning, juggling relationships while loading her narrative with clever detection gambits and peppering chapters with snippets of island history. The scent of native botanicals like heliconia and pua kenikeni perfume the background, along with close-ups of competition canoe paddling—shades of The White Lotus. Karst’s tale pumps up the tropical seaside ambience as the action zeroes in on a duplicitous prime suspect. On each page, emotions run as high as three cups of Kona espresso.
As always—Karst’s readers will recall from her Santa Cruz–based Sally Solari series—the back of the book offers a handful of Karst’s own tempting recipes. The Hilo Sunset cocktail instructions had me running to my liquor cabinet for gin, Campari, and triple sec. Kalbi Ribs will have you hoping you still have sesame oil, mirin and ginger in your larder. Also helpful is Karst’s glossary of Hawaiian words and phrases in the back of the book. Not only is Waters of Destruction a fun read, it’s a lot of aloha bang for your buck.
Leslie Karst’s in-person book launch takes place at 7pm on May 8 at Bookshop Santa Cruz, 1520 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz. 831-423-0900. Free.
