Robert McCaw. Treachery Times Two. Oceanview, 2022. A Koa Kāne Mystery.

Robert McCaw has hooked us with his Koa Kāne novels. Treachery Times Two is the fourth in the series starring our native Hawaiian police detective. This may be the best one yet. This tale keeps the reader guessing with surprises to the very end. As with many detective stories, there are clues that readers may overlook, and there are few throwaway lines in this adventure.

The story begins with an earthquake caused by an eruption of the Big Island’s active volcano, Kilauea. It disturbs an isolated cemetery in aptly named Volcano Village, and some coffins surface. The wild pigs are rooting through the cadavers, but a visitor finds a relatively fresh cadaver buried in a large plastic bag.

It takes a while to identify the woman’s corpse—indeed, the first challenge Koa Kāne faces is the rather time-consuming but ultimately fruitful way she is identified. The victim turns out to be Tiger Baldwin, supposedly a secretary at a top-secret defense contractor named X-Co.

It seems that the police are getting a runaround. They are told everything at X-Co is classified and even personnel questions are none of their business. Not only that, but X-Co’s board includes some high-powered individuals such as United States Senator Chao. Koa’s best friend from his youth Kāwika Kiahi has served as the senator’s long-time aide, but even that connection does not seem to help much.

The story X-Co tells them is that Miss Baldwin resigned her job and left for the mainland. Why would anyone want to kill her? Not only did her killer or killers not want her body to be found, but her fingertips were cut off to hinder any identification. In addition, a security officer at X-Co sold her car to a used car dealer. And someone moved all the furnishings out of her apartment and cleaned it quite thoroughly. These things happened after she had been killed.

Any time it seems they get close to a discovery, someone high in the government complains. Then the FBI shows up. They are peripherally interested in the Baldwin murder, but it seems that they have greater national security concerns that they do not want to share with the local police. Koa finds himself working with five federal agents, all with varying degrees of respect and cooperation with the local detectives. Clearly, they are onto something, and Tiger Baldwin was not just an office assistant.

We also meet Makanui Ka’uhane, a very competent young female detective who has been assigned to Koa’s office. She has a military background and law enforcement training. She also has a fascinating backstory involving Malay pirates in the Philippines.

Things get even more complicated because some of the same politicos connected with X-Co are putting pressure to open a thirty-year-old suicide case. The young Koa himself was involved in the crime and knows it was not really a suicide. The grandson of the victim is trying to restart the case. A fingerprint found at the old crime scene was never traced. It turned out to belong to a man who as a youth was a repeat offender. However, he had a born again experience and turned his life around. He has been a model citizen for twenty-five years.

Koa knows enough to know that the man is perfectly innocent. If Koa comes clean about what he knows, his life will change. He will undoubtedly lose his job, his girlfriend, and probably his freedom. So much of the story—and not just Koa’s story—concerns conscience. Is revenge outside of the law justified? What exactly is betrayal? Can people, corporations, or even government workers used to keeping secrets use their secrecy to cover crimes?

Tiger Baldwin will not be the only murder victim. As the hunt for her murderer morphs into a hunt for some person or people who are sabotaging a top-secret weapons program, things get more complicated and dangerous. There are Philippine pirates, Indonesian freighters, Buddhist temples, nearly inaccessible valleys, and the continuing volcanic action. And those are just what are on the surface.

As the Shadow would say, Who knows what lurks in the hearts of men?