Emerald Flash - Softcover

Knief, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312970587 ISBN 13: 9780312970581

Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks, 2000

Synopsis

In his third adventure, private eye John Caine is in trouble again--only this time it comes looking for him. After saving a California woman and her corporation from certain ruin and acquiring his new home, a classic sailing vessel christened Olympia, he's back in his Hawaiian paradise, working hard at relaxing on the beach and trying to keep to the peaceful side of the street. But a woman named Margo Halliday is about to turn Caine's peaceful world upside down.

One night, as Caine is leaving a neighborhood restaurant/bar, Chawlie's, he encounters a naked woman fleeing from a man who is shooting at her, but fortunately not doing a very good job of hitting his target. Caine easily disables the man and ushers the woman back into the restaurant. The woman, he discovers, is Margo Halliday, and the man, who quickly fled the scene, was her abusive ex-husband.

Caine has almost forgotten about the incident when, months later, he reads about the murder of Margo's ex, who has been found shot to death in her exclusive Hawaii Kai condominium. And the next thing Caine knows, Margo is at his doorstep begging him to hide her from the thugs who murdered her ex and who she now thinks are after her. Desperate to get off the island of Oahu, Margo enlists Caine's help and unknowingly lead him into a lethal game that begins with shots aimed at them with high-powered rifles and leads them deep into the jungles on the island of Kauai, alone and outnumbered against the deadly assassins.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

PI John Caine's fourth adventure opens promisingly with a wild street shootout at a Triad funeral in San Francisco, but the brakes are stomped when the Vietnam-era Navy SEAL catches a round in his back and the medics take over. Many chapters of rest and rumination follow. All Caine wants to do is get back to his sailboat, berthed in Pearl Harbor, and heal his wounds, but a female cop charges him with murder for the death of an innocent bystander at the melee. The body counts racked up in his previous exploits, plus the new incident, may have given Caine a reservation at the gray bar hotel. Against this fairly realistic handling of legal maneuvering and recovery (including the realization that he experienced life-altering post-traumatic stress disorder after Nam) hovers the shadowy question of who ordered the sniper to open fire. Knief (Diamond Head; Sand Dollars; Emerald Flash) also offers his weakened hero a superbly romantic case back in Hawaii: the discovery of the underwater tomb of the legendary King Kamehameha, filled with treasure from a wrecked Spanish galleon (which proves the islands were visited before Cook) all threatened by a newly erupting volcano. These plot lines never quite mesh but Knief keeps everything moving so that many readers may never notice though fans of the sensitive warrior sub-genre might experience a vague wish for a little less sensitive and a lot more warrior before reaching the last page. (June 4)
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0312970587
• ISBN 13: 9780312970581
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304