Idgie Says:This novel has a little bit of everything. Beautiful descriptions of Hawaii, little interesting tidbits of history thrown in, ecology lessons - all intertwined with a murder mystery starring a hunky special agent/surfer/writer dude.
What's not to like?
In all seriousness though, there is a strong ecological underlying theme running through the book, warning of the dangers of ruining our earth in ways that we won't easily come back from.
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Saving Paradise
Mike Bond
Mandevilla Press (November 20, 2012)
Book Description:
Mike Bond isn’t
scared of much. He has hiked more than 50,000 miles—twice the
circumference of the earth—through North and South America, New Zealand,
Mongolia, Russia, Africa, and France. In the dying days of the Algerian
revolution, Bond took off at age 19 across the Sahara, experiencing the
euphoria and terror of wandering on foot across the blazing, uncharted
desert mountains from Tamanrasset to Timbuktu.
As an international
energy expert, war and human rights correspondent, Bond has lived and
worked in many remote, dangerous parts of the world, including
30 countries on six continents.
The one thing that
terrifies him, however, is the destruction of our most treasured
paradises. Some of his characters might be fictitious but Bond’s
work has real-world impact.
His Aloha State thriller,
SAVING PARADISE (Mandevilla Press, 2012) played a role in stopping the
Big Wind and the Inter-island Cable Project in Hawaii. This
project would have destroyed major parts of Molokai, Lanai and Maui with
more than 40 square miles of wind turbines 42 stories high, all
connected by high voltage cables through the Hawaii National
Humpback Whale Sanctuary. In addition to drastic environmental and
social effects on all three islands, it would have had a catastrophic
impact on whales, dolphins and other ocean species including endangered monk seals and turtles.
SAVING PARADISE
begins with love at first sight when Pono Hawkins discovers Sylvia
Gordon in the surf
off Waikiki: she is beautiful, sensitive, athletic, intelligent
and—dead. He vows to find out who could have taken the life of the
popular journalist, a foolish undertaking for a twice-convicted surfer
still on parole. But Pono isn’t one to shy away from trouble—and
trouble certainly doesn’t shy away from him. His Special Forces training
is going to come in handy when the trail of death leads to something
totally unexpected—a scheme to bring Big Wind
to the islands that could have disastrous consequences for the Hawaii
he knows and loves.
Haunted by memories
of Afghanistan and in danger of spending the rest of his life in prison,
Pono dodges a cabal of power corporations, foreign killers
and crooked politicians all intent on pinning the blame on him. He’s in
for a wild ride through the roaring surf and seamy side of paradise.
MIKE BOND was called the “master of the existential thriller” by the BBC and “one of the 21st century’s
most exciting authors” by the Washington Times. His ancestors
were among the first westerners in Hawaii, he is a bestselling novelist,
international energy expert, war and human rights correspondent and
award-winning poet who has lived and worked in
many remote, dangerous parts of the world. His critically acclaimed
novels depict the innate hunger of the human heart for what is good, the
intense joys of love, the terror and fury of battle, the sinister
vagaries of international politics and multinational
corporations and the vanishing beauty of the natural world.