BLOOD LIKE RAIN

A fast-paced police mystery set among the islands of Hawaii.

Errol Coutinho is a detective for the Hawaii County Police who has his work cut out for him when his wife’s best friend, Eleanor, turns up stabbed to death. Coutinho has suspicions that Eleanor’s missing boyfriend, Jerry Wyatt, may also be the infamous and mysterious drug dealer known as Gustav Trondheim (“The name that Big Island pakalolo [marijuana] dealers used to terrify their subordinates”). While hunting for Wyatt, Coutinho meets Diana Andrews, president of Litvinov Associates and the daughter of another drug dealer, Morrison, who leads him to a former sergeant whose corruption landed him in prison on Oahu. Added to this complex web of crime is an eerie woman who seems to be following Coutinho’s wife, Lucy, and Diana’s half sister, Jill. Tucher does an excellent job of combining the gritty and procedural elements of a detective story with the beauty of the Hawaiian Islands—although Coutinho makes it a point to clarify that “certain places in his state…rivaled anything in New Jersey for soul-destroying squalor.” The prose is clear and to the point, with dialogue that’s similarly direct, as in an early exchange between Coutinho and Diana by phone, when he’s searching for her father: She says, “I’m five thousand miles away. And even if I was there, I wouldn’t lift a finger.” “Cold.” “There’s history.” The story’s pace is a bit too rapid, with a few too many characters to keep track of, which leaves little room for readers to simply sit with the events of the narrative; as such, it might have benefited from some breathing room here and there. Overall, though, it’s a successful whodunit.

A thrilling, breakneck tale, but one that’s a bit overcrowded.