Primitive Secrets (Paperback or Softback)

One beautiful Hawaiian morning Storm Kayama walks into her lucrative Honolulu law office to find her adopted uncle, Miles Hamasaki, at his desk, stiff and cold. Years before, Miles had fulfilled a promise to Storm's father to raise Storm with his own family. But now questions emerge about Hamasaki's death and her adopted family, and Storm's suspicions rise.

Heading to the Big Island for a weekend away from escalating pressures, Storm narrowly escapes a terrible accident. Later, with her "aunt" Maile, a traditional Hawaiian healer, and Keone, a paniolo on the huge Parker Ranch, Storm encounters a legend from her youth and a family totem, or 'aumakua, which they say will protect her. Or will it? As Storm struggles to heal wounds from her childhood and bring justice to Hamasaki's killer, she also must come to grips with rifts in her life and culture.

Deborah Atkinson's novels weave the legends and folklore of the Hawaiian Islands into suspenseful mysteries, a perspective of Hawaii the tour books never show. The series consists of four novels, Primitive Secrets (2002), The Green Room (2005), Fire Prayer, (2007), and Pleasing the Dead, (2009). Atkinson lives in Honolulu, Hawaii and is active in Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan, the Iowa Writers' Summer Workshop, and a recipient of the University of Hawaii's Meryl Clark Award for Fiction. www.deborahatkinson.com