In the 20th Sharon McCone mystery, the San Francisco-based PI leaves her usual haunts for Hawaii. McCone's downstairs office neighbor, Glenna Stanleigh, is a documentary filmmaker with a project on the island of Kauai. Glenna and her partner, Peter Wellbright, are making a film about Hawaiian legends and myths, based on the writings of Peter's father, Elson Wellbright, a descendant of early missionaries to the islands. There have been a series of accidents on the film set, and Glenna suspects that someone is trying to kill her or a member of her crew. Can McCone help? McCone is not licensed to operate in Hawaii, so she takes along her lover, Hy Ripinsky, and finds a way to work with the local branch of his security company, RKI. As she delves into the curious circumstances on the set, McCone keeps running into trouble with the large, influential and badly dysfunctional Wellbright family. Two family membersAElson himself and his youngest sonAhave gone missing for some years, and nobody seems to care much. As her inquiries lead her inevitably into learning more about the local folklore and history, McCone falls under the spell of the islands.

Not AR rated