First off, I absolutely <i>love</i> the Mahu series. I love that it takes place where I live and I know the streets and the beaches mentioned in the books. I love the way the detective, Kimo Kanapa'aka, has developed from being closeted (even to himself) to mentoring gay kids (as well as other adults). But I only sometimes love the way his relationships go. This book helps on that score.


Mahu Men is a series of short stories that tell us about Kimo's sex life. There are a couple of mysteries but for the most part, this is the part of his life we don't see in the Mahu books. And he really does have a great sex life! These stories take place between Mahu Fire and Manu Vice, while Kimo and his lover, Mike, are broken up. He is despondent and takes on a new partner (a straight, married man who, happily, doesn't mind that Kimo is gay) and a lot of one night stands.


If you, like me, want to see more of a sex life for Kimo, then this is your book.

In the third Mahu installment, Kimo finally meets someone he can have a real relationship with! Yes, I'm excited for him!


While at a fundraiser for Hawaiian Gay Marriage, a bomb goes off and sets the building on fire. Kimo and his friends and family are all there but make it safely out. The only casualty is the Vice-Mayor, which puts this case on the hot-plate, so to speak. Fire Investigator Mike Riccardi (hot, hot, hot) arrives shortly thereafter and together with Kimo, investigates the trail of the bomb. They get together often - over dinner, drinks, and the burnt out building - to discuss the case and find they have a lot in common, including the fact that they're both gay and find each other attractive.


That's all I'll give away about the book (there's so much more, trust me), but I will tell you that I absolutely <i>love</i> the pairing of Kimo and Mike. The only thing I'm iffy about is Mike's mustache. I'm just not a 'stache girl. Mike does have his issues but it seems he is overcoming those and I really look forward to see how this relationship is played out.


Fires are burning all over the island, but none are as hot as the one between Kimo and Mike! (Oh, so corny but it had to be said!) Start the series with Mahu and Mahu Surfer and you'll see why Kimo is such a great character and Neil S. Plakcy such a great writer.

In the second installment of the Mahu series, Honolulu Police Detective Kimo Kanapa'aka is sent to the North Shore to uncover the mystery of three surfers who have been shot. It's not so much that he's a great detective - it's because he's gay and his coming out made him big news in Honolulu (thanks to his brother's television station) and now most of the police force doesn't want to work with him. Besides, he can surf and so he'll fit in with the people there.


Kimo is in fine form here - investigating the murders, surfing the waves, and having sex with, well, several men. He even gets his first taste of a threesome - and that alone is worth the price of admission folks. 


But, as always, the writing is great and the mystery is even better. (Even I didn't guess this one.) If you haven't started with Mahu, go back to the beginning. You'll be glad you did!

Mahu by Neil S. Plakcy

Mahu is the first in a series featuring police detective Kimo Kanapa'aka. Kimo is the first in the Honolulu Police Department to come out of the closet - and he didn't even want to. I love the character Plakcy has created. He's got a nice body - tall, tan, muscled and (even if he does say so himself) a nice face. Kimo is just another guy trying to hold onto his life through a series of misadventures. That guy just happens to be gay (even though he tries to deny it).


What I really love about Kimo is that in between chasing down leads and running away from sex he's afraid to have (because that will mean he really is gay), he surfs. He surfs Waikiki and the North Shore. Having recently moved to Oahu, I have been learning all about the beaches and "primo" surf spots through these books. 


But Kimo isn't the only one to love. Plakcy has also created a wonderful set of background characters for Kimo from his loving parents and brothers to the gay men he meets to the "uncle" in the Chinese Tong. Kimo plays off all of them deftly and with sincerity.

This is a great mystery and a fun read. Kudos to Neil S. Plakcy for coming up with the wonderful character of Kimo Kanapa'aka!

Green River Killer: A True Detective Story

The Green River Killer was a true life horror that the Pacific Northwest lived with for almost twenty years. Gary Ridgeway has admitted to killing 49 women and has been suspected in the disappearance and deaths of eleven more. (The nickname came from the fact that the first five victims were found in the Green River.) There have been several movies and television reality shows dedicated to the murders and Ridgeway, and now a graphic novel. Green River Killer: A True Detective Story was written by Jeff Jensen, son of one of the original detectives in the case, Tom Jensen.

This novel presents information the general public would otherwise never know (unless they are fans of true crime novels) and offers insights to the process it took to both find the killer and to bring Ridgeway to justice. The details are startling and the horrors of the case are still vivid in my mind – even though shown and told in comic book format.

The opening sequence alone is enough to give parents nightmares, but don’t let it stop you from picking this book up. It not only tells the story of how a great team of detectives and forensic analysts worked hard and long hours, facing sometimes gruesome crime scenes (Ridgeway often performed the act of necrophilia on his victims) but it shows what the detectives themselves went through emotionally and physically.

This is not a long read by any means (I read it in about an hour) but the text and graphics are well done and the story is well worth it.

I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells

Fear the darkness within…

John Wayne Cleaver is dangerous, and he knows it. He’s spent his life doing his best not to live up to his potential.

            He’s obsessed with serial killers but really doesn’t want to become one. So, for his own sake, and the safety of those around him, he lives by rigid rules he’s written for himself, practicing normal life as if it were a private religion that could save him from damnation.

            Dead bodies are normal to John. He likes them, actually. They don’t demand or expect the empathy he’s unable to offer. Perhaps that’s what gives him the objectivity to recognize that there’s something different about the body the police have just found behind the Wash-n-Dry Laundromat – and to appreciate what the difference means.

            Now, for the first time, John has to confront a danger outside himself, a threat he can’t control, a menace to everything and everyone he would love, if only he could.

Review:

            The book starts off with 15 year-old John Wayne Cleaver (named for the actor, not the serial killer) attempting to keep control of his darker thoughts and lack of emotions. We are allowed inside the mind of a teenage sociopath, to see his view of the town he lives in and the people he comes in contact with on a daily basis. Even more importantly, his view of his own mind and why he does (or does not) do the things he does. But with murders piling up in his sleepy little town, the story soon becomes a cat-and-mouse chase as he tries to first find and then take down a killer no one else would believe in, let alone could imagine.

            There were parts of this book where I found John pleasant and, despite his self-diagnosis of sociopathy, a normal teenage boy. Then there were times when he downright scared the hell out of me. In one scene he is holding a knife and threatening his mother, and he admits to himself that it feels good so he keeps doing it. The scene was nail-biting and page-turning.

            As I began this book I thought what a great movie it would make, but as I got further in I realized that no, it is much better off in book form. A movie won’t show us inside John’s head like the written word does – his thoughts of serial killers and killing and sociopaths would be lost in the translation to film and that would be a loss to the story.

            I’m on my way to get part two of the trilogy, Mr. Monster, and have claimed “Let’s hope the fan doesn’t give out on us” as my new catch-phrase. As you read the book, you’ll understand why.

Favorite Quote:

“The project I did last year was on Jeffrey Dahmer,” I said. “He was a cannibal who kept severed heads in his freezer.”

            “I remember now,” said Max, his eyes darkening. “Your posters gave me nightmares. That was boss.”

            “Nightmares are nothing,” I said. “Those posters gave me a therapist.”

The Night Before the Christmas Before I was Married by Adam Maxwell

Adam Maxwell is an author I have somehow missed in all my reading. Now I know better. The Night Before the Christmas Before I was Married & Other Festive Tales is six short stories, each taking place during the Christmas season and each involving our intrepid hero, Martin Lester.

When I read the first paragraph of The Night Before the Christmas Before I was Married, I knew I was hooked. Martin was punching a shopping mall Santa, covered in blood, with security guards in hot pursuit. Now, who hasn’t wanted to pummel a department store Santa at least once in their adult lives? The story involves a run-in with an ex-girlfriend, an unexpected engagement and, after much and varied consumption of alcohol, a plan to rectify the whole situation before his real fiancée comes home.

In Blood in the Snow, Martin spends the holidays with his wife’s family. Here is how he puts it:

This year the big guns were out. This year we weren’t visiting my family. We were visiting my wife Sonia’s family.

Hang on, that deserves capital letters. MY WIFE’S FAMILY.

WHAT A BUNCH OF LOON BAGS. Sorry. I mean what a bunch of interesting people whose take on life is slightly different to my own. And my wife’s. And pretty much anyone else I had ever met who walked upright.

Here he confronts a family of drunken fools (including his wife) and a “Papa” that throws mugs of chocolate at the nearest bystander. He deals with his wife’s family the way we would all wish we could deal with our own families at times – he pretty much ignores them. Until he can’t anymore.

For Rudolph Redux, our man attempts to install an electric Rudolph on the roof of his house. He ends up hanging from the roof, the electrical cord tied around his foot, with Rudolph “swinging and hitting me repeatedly in the face” while his wife yells at him to not put that thing on his roof. I admit I laughed all the way through this story as I remember my parents during the Christmas season (and pretty much any season where decorating was required). If you have ever decorated or watched the decorating, you will enjoy this story.

Ah, Widow Twanky’s Revenge, where Martin is out to do good deeds by delivering Meals on Wheels to the elderly shut-ins. Wonderful, isn’t he? He even takes on additional stops when another driver breaks his leg. What a guy that Martin is! One of his new stops just happens to live in a gothic-style house and collects Pantomime posters in which he has cut out the Widow Twanky on each one. But that’s okay, right? Just because he comes to the door with “rouged cheeks, a big ginger wig full of ringlets, a pair of frilly bloomers and to cap it all, completely bare-chested” that doesn’t mean anything, does it? This was one of my favorite stories in the book, probably because I actually know what British Pantomime (or Panto, as they say) is.

In the final story, The Curious Story of the Hypnotist’s Christmas Tree , Martin has to remember only two things: a gift for his girlfriend’s mother and a tree for his girlfriend’s office. However, plagued as Martin is, he loses his list and ends up battling fellow stage hypnotist the Great Gerry Spagnolo for the biggest tree on the lot. It was greatly amusing to read about men thinking they were chickens and kings and misquoting Shakespeare. And when the army came march-stepping in…

Martin is truly everyman. Terrible things happen to him at the worst times and, while he does his best to fix things, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. But he keeps plugging away, year after year, not letting it get him down. I can’t wait until he has kids!

Adam Maxwell has a true talent for writing. He kept me laughing throughout this series of stories and just when I thought Martin couldn’t do anything worse or funnier, he does. Far Side and Maxwell? Neck and neck.