In Oahu, a serial killer stalks and kills young native-Hawaiian women. Not only is the murderer torturing and killing his victims, all the clues in the letters he leaves at the crime scenes are targeted to one man, Detective Henry Benjamin—the brash New York transplant who has ruffled more than a few feathers with his “tell it like it is,” and may consequences-be-damned attitude. The very first victim on the killer’s list was Henry’s wife, Maya, and each woman after had some sort of tie to Henry, no matter how innocuous. He has been working the case for years, and made little progress. This is very uncharacteristic of Henry, and it casts dispersions on his innocence. It’s clear to Henry that the killer has some type of vendetta against him, and is torturing him, too, by killing his innocent young acquaintances. Any fantasy that Henry might have had that Hawaii was purely the tropical paradise seen by tourists quickly disappeared in these last almost fourteen years as a Detective, as he has seen the side of Hawaii that vacationers never experience.

What a wonderfully written book, packed with great detail and stunning prose “journal entries” that open every chapter. (To wit: “When we stand tall, strong, and together, we will weather any storm. I take comfort in knowing you also know the day will be soon that the clouds will part, and our hands will once again be free to catch the setting sun.”) Henry is a complicated character, paired with another complex character in the form of Detective Keilani Kalakina, a woman with painful family memories and relatives in unexpected places. Reluctantly, after being given his case due to lack of results, Keilani allows him to quietly join forces with her to investigate. They are an unlikely coupling who don’t really trust each other, and the writing regarding their joint investigation is very entertaining, as are the other unscrupulous characters working against Henry in the shadows. There is a poignant backstory about people who pollute their land, thereby becoming their own worst enemies, and the character of Henry does not make any friends by pointing it out. Overall a successful, exciting, descriptive, and thrilling page-turner, “To Catch the Setting Sun” is a novel not to be missed.

I’d like to thank NetGalley, Richard I. Levine, and The Wild Rose Press, Inc. for the ability to read and review this ARC.