Funny Things to Call a Nalani

Greatest thing you learned at school.

Army Airborne Training and police force school—both superbly taught—were the best educational experiences of my life. Airborne training gave me my kickoff lesson in mental toughness. Police force school taught me nearly the genius of the founding fathers in creating the American constitutional system. On the one paw, they recognized that government was necessary for a civilized gild. On the other manus, they understood that abuse of authorization is i of the most common themes in human history. Their genius lies in their concept of divided governmental powers, establishing three co-equal branches of the federal government and leaving substantial dominance at the country level, hoping that each would serve equally a check upon others' potential abuses.

When/how did you realize y'all had a creative dream or calling to fulfill?

On my get-go visit to the Big Island of Hawaii, I was absorbed and began to study the islands, their history, geology, civilization, and language. The more I learned, the more I wanted to share my thoughts and impressions. I'd ever been a fan of puzzles and mysteries, and I ultimately chose the murder mystery genre as the vehicle to share my passion. That said, because I had a demanding law practice, it took me more than than twenty years to publish Expiry of a Messenger. Possibly, my persistence reflects the force of my compulsion to share in my writing stories of the existent Hawaii far from the tourist venues for which Hawaii is famous.

Tell u.s. your about rewarding feel since being published.

It is e'er rewarding when a reader or a reviewer "gets it" and understands that Death of a Messenger and my other Koa Kane novels are immersive explorations of Hawaii's history, geology, civilization, and language and more than than murder mysteries and thrillers set up amidst an exotic locale.

What are some of your current and future projects that you can share with us?

Oceanview Publishing has contracted to publish the fourth book in the Koa Kane series—Treachery Times 2—in January 2022. The newest story delves deeply into Koa's criminal background and takes his detective work in cooperation with federal agents protecting our national security in a new direction.

In your newest book, Death OF A MESSENGER (Koa Kāne Hawaiian Mystery #i); can you tell my Book Nerd community a little about the novel?

In Decease of a Messenger, Koa Kane, the Main Detective in the Hilo, Hawaii, law must discover who killed an unidentified soul and left his mutilated torso in a remote lava cavern. The novel is a murder mystery, merely it is also a story about Koa'due south life journeying, the historical mysteries surrounding the lives and disappearance of ancient Hawaiian stone tool makers, the threads that connect aboriginal and modern Hawaii, and the tragedies suffered past the Hawaiian people.

Your Favorite Quotes/Scenes from Decease OF A MESSENGER

5 volcanoes (including three that remain agile) comprise the Large Island. The ancients did not empathize volcanic geology and then turned to myth to explain eruptions and volcanic features. Thus, they gave birth to Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire. Just every bit the active volcanoes continue to shape the Big Island today, Pele plays a critical office in Death of a Messenger.

A imprint in Hawaiian on Koa's office wall reads: "Without our ancestors we would not be." The bulletin articulates a key theme running throughout Death of a Messenger.

Two love stories are embedded within the book—ane involves Koa and his girlfriend, and the other describes the victim and his significant other. The latter human relationship began with the Hawaiian legend of the handsome Ohia and the cute Lehua.

Hook Hao, a 7-pes Hawaiian commercial fisherman and fish auctioneer with a knack for relating Hawaiian legends, is a police informer and significant histrion in the story.

Expiry of a Messenger gives readers a taste of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, an outgrowth of Hawaii's tortured history as a sovereign nation, overthrown and annexed by the The states before condign the 50th Country.

The setting of Death of a Messenger—what I telephone call the real Hawaii, as opposed to the arcadian image of the tourist Hawaii—becomes a character in the story, interacting with and shaping the novel's human characters and their reactions.

The book concludes with an boggling, thrilling scene in a spectacular location. Simply no spoilers!

TEN RANDOM FACTS ABOUT Death OF A MESSENGER

Readers will come across a descendant of King Kamehameha, the 1st, who conquered and united the islands, creating the Kingdom of Hawaii.
The earth-form telescopes, which dot the summit of Mauna Kea, play a role in the Expiry of a Messenger.
Readers will meet one of my sometime Ground forces buddies, recast in the office of Lieutenant Zeigler, the commander of the military police force detachment at the Pohakuloa Training Surface area on the Big Island. With 109,000 acres, the PTA, as information technology's called, is the largest Usa defense force installation in the Pacific.
Sergeant Basa, Koa'southward go-to assistant for challenging cases, has a weakness for sweet Hawaiian malasadas and lots of sugar in his coffee.
Koa's mother is a respected native healer. His father, a lowly merely proud sugar worker, was tragically killed in a horrible blow at one of the island'southward aging sugar mills.
Readers become a taste of inter-island travel when the investigation takes Koa to Maui and and then to the restricted island of Kahoolawe.
Readers will learn about graupel—yep, graupel.
In truth, besides as in the volume Hawaii County has no coroner. A local doctor fills that role. In Death of a Messenger, my fictional coroner is an incompetent obstetrician. He'due south an even worse poker thespian.
The superlative of Mauna Kea is a place of extremes—at times remarkably beautiful, and at other times i of the well-nigh dangerous places on earth.
Zeke Brownish, the Hawaii Canton prosecutor—a composite of many different land and federal prosecutors with whom I've dealt as a lawyer—is a recurring character in my Hawaiian mystery serial. I hope you enjoy meeting him as much as I enjoyed creating him. If yous're curious, he plays even larger roles in Off the Grid, Burn down and Vengeance, and Treachery Times Two.

Meet the Characters

Koa Kane is a cop with a secret by. As a teenager, he killed his father's nemesis and covered upwards the criminal offense. He besides has a wayward blood brother who becomes a career criminal. Thus, Koa's background makes him an unusual cop, but one with deep motivation and special skills arising from his past. Quoting from the volume: "Questions ricocheted in [Koa's] heed. Information technology was always like that at the showtime of an investigation, and he'd learned to let the questions accrue unanswered. Questions opened the heed to unlikely possibilities. That and his own hugger-mugger criminal history were what fabricated him such a good investigator."

Nalani is Koa's significant other. Quoting from the novel: "Nālani lingered in his mind's eye after he put down the phone—Nālani in that outrageous bikini at the Green Sand Embankment, Nālani with the wind tangling her hair on the Kīlauea Iki Trail in Hawai'i

Volcanoes National Park, sleepy-eyed, half-naked Nālani waking up in the forenoon. He wondered how he could be and so lucky and worried that his job—and at present his damaged neck—were straining their relationship. Although he had eight years on her, he didn't feel old when he was with her. Yet he wasn't sure how she felt deep inside well-nigh living with a forty-plus-twelvemonth-former cop. Insecurity was a funny affair . . . information technology hit you hardest when you had something to lose."

Jimmy is an archeologist who helps Koa understand the Island's history. Quoting from the book: "The butt-chested man maneuvered the wheelchair, which twisted and bounced similar an amusement park ride, over the rugged terrain. How many wheelchairs does this guy destroy in a calendar month? Koa wondered. Jimmy'southward upper arms were huge, yet his legs ended higher up his missing knees in thick rubberized stubs. Equally if in sympathy, a spear of pain shot down Koa's right arm."

Your Journey to Publication

Oceanview is republishing Death of a Messenger in January 2021 with some additions and changes from the original 2015 publication. Initially, after trying without success to find an agent and publisher, I self-published the volume but did so through a premium service that helped me produce a professional person product. I've heard agents say that information technology is hard to notice a publisher after cocky-publishing, but that was non my feel. The novel's original publication helped me find an excellent agent in Mel Parker, and he helped me develop a bang-up relationship with Oceanview Publishing. Along the way, my family unit helped and supported me with encouragement and suggestions. No one was more supportive than my married woman, Calli, who is as well a talented editor. Friends may take been a bit surprised at my transition from lawyer to the author of fiction only have been extraordinarily generous and encouraging in their support and praise.

Writing Behind the Scenes

I write on a laptop and use Dropbox, so I never have to worry about losing piece of work through a dreaded computer glitch. I find Grammarly, the online writing assistant and grammer checker, to be quite useful. I'1000 fond of maxim that for me as a novelist, life is research. I am e'er on the lookout for memorable characters whose appearances, personalities, mannerisms, linguistic communication, and quirks I can mix-and-match into the fictional people who inhabit my books. Fair warning—if we run into, you may observe yourself described in the next story.

What is the start task you lot have had?

Besides family unit chores, I delivered the Washington Post to about seventy-five neighbors in the community where I lived. I had a big basket for the folded papers on the front end of my bicycle and got pretty good at tossing them onto front porches. I also had a giant laundry basket on a sled for the cold, snowy mornings. The monthly agony of collecting the amounts due from my clients was a lot less fun than the daily newspaper toss. As you may have guessed, this was long before the Internet!

What is your virtually memorable travel experience?

Growing upwardly in a military family, serving in the military, and representing clients with foreign interests or issues, I've traveled a great deal. Hands down, the trip that impressed me the most was a cruise to Antarctica and Due south Georgia Island. The continent's vastness, ice, weather, and wildlife changed my perspective on life, giving new meaning to the essential things in this earth.

Which incident in your life that totally changed the way you think today?

After graduating from college, I became an officeholder in the Us Army and served my kickoff bout of duty at Camp Page in South Korea. Ane twenty-four hours, the camp commandant called me into his function and appointed me (not all the same a lawyer) the prosecutor in a special court-martial. This occurred in the days when the rules for special courts-martial provided that the officer serving as defence force counsel had to have at least as much legal training as the officer serving as prosecutor. I prepared and tried the example against an officer who had graduated from constabulary school and was a member of the Pennsylvania bar. I lost all the motions but convicted the accused, who was undeniably guilty. In trying my offset case, I got hooked on the law and afterward graduated from law school, clerked for US Supreme Court Justice Hugo 50. Black, and then pursued a challenging legal career. Who knows what I'd have washed with my life if I hadn't had that first gustatory modality of jurisprudence.

Which would you cull, true love with a guarantee of a eye break or accept never loved before?

I see this equally a question nearly take a chance, and for me, the key to life is managing adventure. So, you ask, which would I prefer, the run a risk of doing zilch (and having nix) or the chance of experiencing true honey knowing that it will end in heartbreak. I would choose true love because the reward of true love is immeasurable, peradventure 1 of the about rewarding of life'due south possible experiences. The pain of future heartbreak would be worth the toll.

If you could exist born into history as whatever famous person who would information technology be and why?

I've always been fascinated by astronomy. It is the career I didn't pursue. If I could be any person in history, I'd probably exist an astronomer—mayhap Galileo or Hubble or Einstein. On the other hand, it might be fun to rule the world as Julius Caesar or Alexander the Corking!

Someone's constitute a torso at Pohakuloa, the ground forces's alive-fire preparation area. Bearing all the marks of ancient ritual sacrifice—the murder is the grisliest of Detective Koa Kane's career.

The baroque 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 equally 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 and then shocking it toll him his life and put others, too, in mortal danger? Will Hilo's nearly respected native detective grab this fiend in time, or will the killer strike again—with even deadlier consequences?

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