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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Sunday, December 26, 2004

Enticing thriller is set on Maui

By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Books Editor

"MAUI WHISPERS" by Rick Olson; Doublebow Books, paper, $14.95

Set on its author's home island of Maui, this contemporary thriller concerns a wealthy Maui artist with a colorful background and eclectic interests. Sky Shafer has a successful career, a beautiful new girlfriend, a respected place in the community (not to mention an impossibly cool name). But he's also got an ex-girlfriend who'd like to see him go the way of her three husbands — to the morgue. A bit stiff and adjective-laden, but the plot moves right along and it's fun to read about familiar settings in a novel.



"THE GHOST OF WALTER KUPAU" by Lori Aquino; Mutual Publishing, paper $10.95

You're hooked from the first scene by this fictional story involving a real-life character, the late charismatic labor leader Walter Kupau. Written by the carpentry union's former legal counsel, now an attorney in private practice, the book has a preposterous and captivating plot involving love gone bad — very bad. Aquino has a knack for crisp dialog and the telling detail that snaps a character into focus. Her sense of humor is fine-tuned. There's a moral here, too. And in the end, as the Kupau character says, "Everybody gets what's coming to them."



"HAWAI'I'S PINEAPPLE CENTURY" by Jan K. TenBruggencate; Mutual Publishing, paper, $15.95

The author, father of The Advertiser's environmental reporter and Kaua'i correspondent, is a retired agricultural consultant who researched pineapple throughout his career. This well-designed book punctuated with dozens of pictures explains how a nonnative fruit became so deeply associated with the Islands, and tracks the history of pineapple plantations from boom days to lean times, describing how these businesses have adapted to survive.



"HONOLULU CSI" by Gary A. Dias and Robbie Dingeman; Bess Press, paper, $11.95

This is the third in a series of books that began with the bestselling "Honolulu Cop" and continued with "Honolulu Homicide," both memoirs of Dias' 27 years with the Honolulu Police Department. Co-authored with his wife, Advertiser writer Robbie Dingeman, this one seeks to take advantage of the current fascination with crime- scene investigation technology sparked by the "CSI" TV shows. Weaving personal anecdotes in as they apply, Dias and Dingeman separate fantasy from fact and show how CSI works in the real world. A chapter on how to protect yourself is a bonus.