The Lava Witch
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
The grim hard facts of a bizarre ritual murder collide with local legends of sorcery and possession for Maui detective Kali Māhoe.
In a remote, mountainous area of a Maui forest near Haleakala volcano, the naked body of a young woman is found hanging from a tree. The devil is in the details: the woman’s nostrils, mouth, and lungs are packed with lava sand. Her hands are bound in twine. Her feet are charred and blackened, suggesting a fire-walking ceremony. Detective Kali Māhoe’s suspicions are immediately aroused. It has all the signs of a ritual torture and murder.
But Kali’s investigation soon leads her down a winding trail of seemingly unconnected clues and diverging paths—from the hanging tree itself, a rare rainbow eucalyptus, to rumors of a witch haunting the high areas of the forest, to the legend of the ancient Hawaiian sorceress Pahulu, goddess of nightmares. Casting a shadow over it all—the possibility of a Sitting God, a spirit said to invade and possess the soul.
Aided by her uncle Police Captain Walter Alaka’i, Officer David Hara, and the victim’s brother, Kali embarks down the darkest road of all. One that is leading to the truth of the mountain’s deadly core and a dark side of the island for which even Kali is unprepared.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bokur's stellar third Dark Paradise mystery (after 2021's The Bone Field) takes Det. Kali Mahoe of the Maui police to a grisly crime scene in the Kula Forest Reserve. A corpse, later identified as that of 24-year-old Maya Louise Holmes, hangs from a tree, her hands bound, her neck in a noose, and the soles of her feet partially burnt, possibly from having been forced into a firewalking ceremony. The autopsy reveals that the victim, who was reported missing two days earlier, was tortured and then suffocated with fine lava dust. Kali pursues numerous angles, including the possibility that the killing was linked to Holmes's work for the Center for Marine Mining and Research related to robotic technology. Meanwhile, a witness claims to have seen "a band of witches" flying through the trees where the body was displayed and heard noises that sounded like someone was being tortured, testimony that forces Kali to review the supernatural legends she learned growing up in Hawaii to see whether they have any relevance to her inquiry. This procedural keeps readers guessing all the way to the gratifying solution. Fans of Tony Hillerman will be enthralled.
