3 out of 4 stars
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The Stone Lantern: A Hawaiian Mystery is a novel by Samantha Stevens.
The prologue tells of two men venturing into a cave on the Big Island of Hawaii. There, they find both an ancient and a more recent skeleton with a bashed-in skull. Chapter one takes us to Jessie Bradford, and readers learn that this second skeleton is her father Allen, who was assumed to have drowned about forty years ago. Jessie is only in the area because her uncle Rod has died and left her his ranch. She has come to settle his affairs before returning home to San Francisco. While her father was known to go fishing regularly at the base of the cliffs, it is soon determined that it was a murder.
The present of the novel, which shows the unfolding of figuring out the who and why behind Allen Bradford’s murder, is interwoven with the past that contains these answers. This structure between the past and the present flows quite smoothly. We see Jessie and the police try to find the answers while we also are taken into the past to Allen’s life as the manager of a sugar plantation with Japanese workers. There are flashbacks mixed in with the present of the story, in addition to chapters where the focus is solely on relating past events. Family secrets are uncovered and motives become apparent, but there are still surprises as to how it all fits together.
Detective McIntire (a.k.a. Mac) is one of the main people dedicated to the case, but Jessie does her own investigative work, discovering the truth for herself. This is one of many of her admirable qualities. She is realistically flawed or unsure of herself at times, particularly when it comes to her love life. Yet, she also exudes strength in the midst of adversity, for she is bombarded with death, memories, questions, and many major life decisions at the same time. The story is told in the third person, though sometimes we hear Jessie’s first-person thoughts. I particularly enjoyed these small moments, like the detail about her deciding not to run an obituary for her father because it’s all over the news anyhow. Furthermore, when she thinks about her father’s bones, she wonders: “What happened to his watch, his wedding ring?” She is forced to reconsider the nature of her parents’ relationship, what she once thought was normal.
I personally found the who and why behind the murder to be satisfying, but won’t give away any spoilers. The resolution of the romance plot, however, wasn’t quite as riveting as I had hoped for. Mac, the detective on the case, and Jessie were high school sweethearts who broke up when they went to college. Brought back into each other’s lives due to Allen Bradford’s case, this plotline captured my interest at first but the tension, obstacles, and seemingly rushed resolution were perhaps not as fully or originally developed as they could have been and came across as generic in the end. Even so, I enjoyed the past connection that they had, as the relationship between the past and the present was very well done in this novel.
I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. It was well written and well structured with a likable protagonist and an interesting plot. I would recommend it to anyone who likes mystery novels and stories set in Hawaii.
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The Stone Lantern
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