Honolulu Heat: Between the Mountains and the Great Sea - Book Review

          Honolulu Heat by Rosemary and Larry Mild opens their novel with a deadly category 4 hurricane meandering the skies just off the shores of Kauai Island. Alex, Leilani, and Malia Wong are babysitting a toddler, Noah Kaleo, right on the beach and are unaware of the dangerous storm churning in the Pacific waters just hours away.  When they are alerted of the danger that they are about to face they have but minutes to prepare and must face nature’s wrath huddled in their home praying for salvation.

         Their house is wrecked, but they survive; not so for Noah’s parents, so suddenly the Wongs are a family of four.  The devastation is so great that the Wong family decides to leave Kauai and go to Honolulu and live with Alex’s parents, Paul and Masako. As our protagonist, Noah, grows up he becomes more and more of a problem child, even being expelled from Oahu Prep school at age eleven.

          Rosemary and Larry introduce a handful of shady characters who will soon have great sway over Noah. The story acquaints the reader with the racially mixed Hawaiian culture and the Honolulu underworld. The authors combine their knowledge of Hawaii with their fictional characters and a plot of murder, mayhem, and turf wars.  The varying characteristics of Filipino, Hispanic, Chinese, English speaking tourists and native Hawaiians are portrayed as diverse cultures within the Hawaiian society.

          The novel is complete with memorable well-developed characters with engaging personalities and individual backstories juxtaposed with a complex present-day situation. The authors successfully integrate the many secondary characters and subplots into a cohesive riveting story.

          Fourteen-year-old Noah’s outrageous escapades and antics become a real serious problem for the already dysfunctional, convoluted but loving, extended families that he’s a part of. Noah had caused his foster parents grief for years but it finally culminates one horrible night.
         “Tonight had started so happily with Nina and sweet kisses.  It had turned out to be the worst night of his life. And hers too.”

          Bullying escalates to a death. Suspense and intrigue, murder and crime, a Chinatown racketeer feuds with a crime-land don in this action-packed novel. Noah is trapped in this backwash of violence.      

          Adding local color, Hawaii’s environment with indigenous plants and ethnic foods are woven into the story. In keeping with the multi-ethnic character of the Hawaiian language, foreign words are in italic and the context is easily interpreted. “Yeah, business as usual. Smooth as a baby’s okole.” “Eme would have called it an akua, a truly good spirit.” “White lady? You mean a haole lady?”

          As the plot thickens and Noah seems to have no escape, the turf wars expand and escalate into one major crisis after another.  As violence entraps the paradise island, it becomes more difficult to see any hope of a satisfactory conclusion as a torrent of terrible events fills the pages. You will start to wonder if the authors can bring the story to a satisfying close. Will they?    

            Honolulu Heat is a sequel to the Milds’ novel Cry Ohana, but it can easily stand alone as an independent novel. It is not only an entertaining but also an informative read about the great state of Hawaii. With memorable characters, family drama and cultural dynamics, Honolulu Heat is an engaging, successfully plotted novel that is fun to read.