Ambrose Bierce and the Death of Kings - Softcover

Hall, Oakley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0142001333 ISBN 13: 9780142001332

Publisher: Penguin Books, 2002

Synopsis

World-famous journalist Ambrose Bierce investigates the disappearance of a Hawaiian princess and is plunged headlong into a world of intrigue and mystery surrounding the court of Hawaiian royalty living in San Francisco. By the author of Ambrose Bierce and the Queen of Spades. Reprint.

About this title

About the Author:

Oakley Hall is the author of more than twenty works of fiction. Director of the Programs in Writing at the University of California at Irvine for more than twenty years, he is the recipient of a Pen Center USA West Award of Honor for a lifetime of literary achievement.

From Publishers Weekly:

While King Kalakaua of Hawaii lies dying in a San Francisco hotel room, celebrated author-cum-detective Ambrose Bierce and his young companion, Tom Redmond, get the call to find a missing member of the royal entourage in this entertaining, if choppy, historical set during the winter of 1890-91. As in Hall's first novel in the series, Ambrose Bierce and the Queen of Spades (1998), Redmond plays an engaging Watson to Bierce's Holmes. Redmond falls in love with the "monumental" Haunani Brown, a beautiful Hawaiian who is visiting her uncle, California poet Edward Browne. Simultaneously, millionaire Aaron Underwood hires Bierce to find Princess Leileiha, who's betrothed to potential heir to the throne Alexander Honomoku and is a close friend of Haunani. The two threads of the story romance and mystery are woven inevitably, expertly, together. Since the king has named no successor, the fate of Hawaii as well as that of U.S. imperial aspirations, and the ambitions of Underwood's father, the frightful sugar baron Silas Underwood hangs in the balance. Not surprisingly, murder, mayhem and even magic come into play. The sprinkling of old-fashioned and Hawaiian terms throughout the text, such as "instanter" and the delightful "panipani," adds period flavor. The author, alas, breaks up the narrative with short expository sections that read like nothing so much as afterthoughts. On the whole, though, this book makes for a captivating rollick through Old Frisco.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0142001333
• ISBN 13: 9780142001332
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288