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A Review of Naomi Hirahara’s Iced in Paradise (Prospect Park Books, 2019)
By Stephen Hong Sohn
It’s been a bit of time since I’ve reviewed a work by Naomi Hirahara, who is definitely one of my favorite Asian American mystery genre writers (along with Steph Cha and some others). I am still praying and hoping that Hirahara will be able to find a publisher that will put the Ellie Rush series into a trade paperback or *gasp* a hardcover. Fortunately, Prospect Park Books chose to release this particular book in dual editions, which is fitting since it seems as though Hirahara is starting off a new series with Iced in Paradise.
Let’s get this mystery, whodunnit party started with the official marketing description here: “Leilani Santiago has left her post-collegiate life in Seattle to return home to the Hawaiian island of Kaua‘i. Her mom’s been diagnosed with MS, and she wants to help keep afloat the family business, a shave ice shack. When Leilani arrives at work one morning, she stumbles across a dead body, a young pro surfer who was being coached by her estranged father. As her father soon becomes the No. 1 murder suspect, Leilani must find the real killer and somehow safeguard her ill mother, little sisters, and grandmother, while trying to keep the long-distance relationship with her boyfriend alive. With Iced in Paradise, award-winning mystery writer Naomi Hirahara is at the top of her game, introducing a smart, outspoken, sometimes cranky young sleuth and immersing readers in the charms and quirks of small-town Hawaiian life.”
First off, big kudos to Hirahara for pushing her aesthetic representational choices by working in dialogue that employs pidgin English. In an author’s note, Hirahara details that she’s not entirely an expert in the dialect so she had to work quite hard to render it in a realistic way. This choice is more than a detail because Hirahara is looking to give concrete and material dimensions to her depiction of Kaua‘i. Of course, with any good mystery, you have to have something to solve, which appears in the guise of the aforementioned surfer. Because the surfer is found dead in the family’s shave ice business, they are naturally looked at as suspects. But you know that Hirahara will lead us elsewhere. In particular, you’re hoping that the death of the surfer might have something to do with his father, a business magnate who is trying to develop more land at the expense of indigenous and local Hawaiian communities. In this respect, Hirahara is well aware of settler colonial problematics and gives readers a sense of the larger stakes of what it means to own land on the islands. At the same time, in some sense, this material becomes somewhat of a red herring, especially as the mystery draws to a close.
Though scope and problem of land ownership in Hawai‘i does cast a larger shadow over the resolution to the murder, the novel still manages to find its genre footing precisely because of Hirahara’s expert and deft use/construction of first person narration. Leilani Santiago is a fully realized, flawed, yet exceedingly likable heroine. We’ll fully sympathize with her, as her relationship disintegrates amid her desire to reconnect with her family and her roots. We’ll cheer for her as she doggedly tries to find a way to clear her father’s name. We’ll appreciate the subtle and not-so-subtle ways that she finds herself attracted to a former Silicon Valley executive who has traveled to the area to start a new life. And naturally, we’ll want to read ever more about her exploits and her mystery-solving adventures, so let’s hope Hirahara has at least the requisite trilogy in the works. In the meantime, it’s still summer, so let’s find a way to get ourselves a shave ice (not shaved ice) treat before the hot weather has given way to pumpkin spice lattes and Halloween candy.
For more and to buy the book, go to the official site.
Review Author: Stephen Hong Sohn
Review Editor: Gnei Soraya Zarook
If you have any questions or want us to consider your book for review, please don’t hesitate to contact us via email!
Prof. Stephen Hong Sohn at ssohnucr@gmail.com
Gnei Soraya Zarook, PhD Student in English, at gzaro001@ucr.edu