With his youthful voice and careful pacing, narrator Kaleo Griffith portrays Grady Kendall, the underachieving protagonist of this thriller. The locale is an unidentified Hawaiian island, and Griffith, a native of Hawaii, adds to the audiobook's authenticity with his pronunciation of local geography and Indigenous terminology. Also adding to the verisimilitude are author Hand's descriptions of Hawaii during the Covid era with its dwindling tourists, meth addicts, and exploitation of natural wonders. Grady, who begins the story naïve and bewildered, soon embarks on a missing person search that unveils the darker side of this tropical idyll. Expect more than a mystery; the audiobook dips into fantasy and often races like a thriller. R.W.S. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

05/02/2022

Grady Kendall, the protagonist of this atmospheric if flawed thriller from Hand (Curious Toys), escapes his depressing life in Maine to become the caretaker for billionaire Wes Minton’s mansion on the beautiful but perilous Hawaiian volcanic peninsula of Hokuloa, complete with a tank of poisonous sea urchins, an aviary of near-extinct birds, and a creepy doglike specter. Meanwhile, Minton spends most of his time at remote Hokuloa Point, where his plan to build a resort has been blocked by environmental activists. Grady discovers via the locals that homeless people often disappear and the police don’t much care. But when Jessica Kiyoko, a visitor to the area whom Grady met on the flight over, looks to be among the missing, Grady feels compelled to unearth his employer’s secrets. The core story moves smoothly between Grady’s fears and the social moments that advance the plot, though Grady’s past trauma comes up several times without payoff, and the emotional aspects of the relationship between Grady and Jessica’s best friend stay unsatisfyingly off-screen. Hand neatly balances tense action with rich environmental ambience, and the supernatural with the darkly human. She remains a writer to watch. Agent: Nell Pierce, Sterling Lord Literistic. (July)

"Elizabeth Hand’s Hokuloa Road brims with menace: vine-choked cliff-top highways, aviaries filled with strange birds, tanks of poisonous sea urchins . . . Brilliantly atmospheric."—New York Times Book Review

“Over decades, [Hand] has proved that she’s eclectic, genre-bending, and comfortable in fantasy and mystery, crime, myth, magic—and more. In Hokuloa Road, she explores the rich and diverse culture and environment of Hawaii—and seamlessly stitches this fascinating material into a girl-gone-missing story. It’s refreshingly and originally creepy.”—Washington Post

“Elizabeth Hand has been one of my favorite authors since Wylding Hall, so when I opened Hokuloa Road I knew I'd get her signature mix of deeply evocative prose, sinister surroundings, and fascinating characters. I was right, but even as a long time Hand Fan, I was completely blown away by this book. Hokuloa Road is twisty and dark, easily one of the best thrillers I've read, but it's so much more than that, too. It's thoughtful and pensive, smart and scary, and exhilarating as you realize that you're in the hands of a master storyteller. After reading this book, I promise, Elizabeth Hand is going to become one of your favorite authors, too.”—Rachel Hawkins, New York Times bestselling author of Reckless Girls and The Wife Upstairs

"A finely written thriller—a compelling adventure story set in a vivid location."
 —Wall Street Journal

"Set in a Hawaii so vividly imagined I'm still shaking sand out of my shoes, Elizabeth Hand's perfectly crafted ghost story is exactly the comfort-destroying read you need on a long, lonely night."—Grady Hendrix, New York Times bestselling author of The Final Girl Support Group

“Hand probes dark crevices in beautiful places, and the engrossing . . . Hokuloa Road smoothly incorporates Hawaiian ghost stories and myths into an exciting plot grounded in the natural world.”—Shelf Awareness

“Hand is a master at genre-blending stories that feature carefully dosed supernatural malevolence. Here, she wields that mix of horror and thriller to draw together a cast of sympathetically awkward, fiercely loyal outcasts. Another strange, satisfying winner.”
 —Booklist (starred review)

“Exciting, rich, thick verisimilitude…But the rest of the majestic allure of the book—which, beside being almost journalistically keen, is rife with thrilling supernatural events—can be traced to Hand’s well-known and previously displayed visionary powers, her remarkable way with words, and her ability to conjure up characters that the reader falls for, then to put them through thrilling events…Swift-moving yet deliberate, establishing thick connections between the natural world and the numinous forces behind it, Hokuloa Road would make a great dramatic TV miniseries. Call it Hawaii-666.”—Locus Magazine

"Hokuloa Road has the power to send a chill down your spine . . . A go-to chilling read, whether it’s hot or cold in your part of the world."—Crime Fiction Lover

“This is the perfect book for your summer beach bag—an evocative mystery set in a tropical island paradise. The locals warn that Hokuloa Road is dangerous, but I was completely enthralled by its scenery and secrets!”
 —Jason Rekulak, author of Hidden Pictures

“Somehow, Elizabeth Hand has made Hawaii an unsettling destination. A hallmark of greatness, of course, and Hand is full of them. The book is one singular intensification, from apprehension to alarm, seclusion to alienation. You might do worse than to score a caretaker's gig on a gorgeous island, but Hokuloa Road suggests otherwise. Horror fans, be seated.”—Josh Malerman, New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box

"If Lost had been written by Jane and Paul Bowles, with some input from Stephen King, then it might read something like Hokolua Road."
 —CrimeReads

"Atmospheric . . . Hand neatly balances tense action with rich environmental ambience, and the supernatural with the darkly human. She remains a writer to watch."
 
 —Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Book of Lamps and Banners

“Cass Neary is a remarkable heroine. As with Sherlock Holmes, her power lies in the act of seeing what ordinary people cannot, only where Holmes brings clues to light, Neary is content to linger in the dark. Her eye catches the liminal spaces between clarity and shadow so well I found myself rereading passages for the beauty of her way of seeing.”—New York Times Book Review, on The Book of Lamps and Banners

"The ancient manuscript at the center of The Book of Lamps and Banners is as kaleidoscopic, dark, and mysterious as Hand's amateur sleuth. This novel is a jaw-punch, written with a snarling grace."—Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and The Cabin atthe End of the World, on The Book of Lamps and Banners

"It's hard to imagine a more perfect novel than The Book of Lamps and Banners . . . Elizabeth Hand has delivered a startling book that is dirty, wise, aching, and almost magical. Hand expertly marries muscular prose to sophisticated detail, resulting in an enviably smart, fearless novel that conjures demons, evokes an immediate sense of place, and summons the surreal."—Ivy Pochoda, author of These Women, on The Book of Lamps and Banners

“A hair-raising, mind-bending trip… Exquisitely suspenseful, and the paranoia suffusing the story is very much of our present moment.”—BookPage (starred review), on The Book of Lamps and Banners

02/01/2022

In The Paper Caper, Carlisle's latest "Bibliophile Mystery," murder transpires at the first annual Mark Twain Festival, held by Brooklyn Wainwright at her bookstore and underwritten by media magnate Joseph Cabot. In Castillo's The Hidden One, Amish elders turn to Painters Mill chief of police Kate Burkholder when the remains of a long-vanished bishop are discovered, bearing evidence of foul play (150,000-copy first printing). Private informer Flavia Albia's next Desperate Undertaking is finding a serial killer (or killers) committing brutal murder and staging the corpses around Davis's first-century CE Rome (30,000-copy first printing). In Hokuloa Road, cross genre-writing, Shirley Jackson Award-winning Hand makes Grady Kendall caretaker of a luxury property in Hawaii (as far as possible from his native Maine), then has him hunting for a young woman from his flight who has since vanished (30,000-copy first printing). In McCall Smith's The Sweet Remnants of Summer, Isabel Dalhousie is serving on an advisory committee for the Scottish National Portrait Gallery when she is caught up in the squabbles of a prominent family where Nationalist vs. Socialist ideologies prevail. In Peril at the Exposition, a follow-up to March's Edgar finalist debut, Murder in Old Bombay, newlyweds Capt. Jim Agnihotri and Diana Framji have left British-ruled Bombay (now Mumbai) for 1890s Boston when Jim is sent to investigate a murder in Chicago (50,000-copy first printing). In Munier's The Wedding Plot, Mercy's grandmother Patience is set to marry her longtime beloved at the five-star Lady's Slipper Inn when family enmities bubble to the surface, the inn's spa director vanishes, and a stranger turns up dead (30,000-copy first printing). In An Honest Living—a debut from Murphy, editor in chief of CrimeReads, Literary Hub's crime fiction vertical—an attorney picking up odd jobs after walking out on his stranglehold law firm agrees to help reclusive literati Anna Reddick find her possibly thieving bookseller husband, and all's well until the real Anna Reddick walks in. In Rosenfelt's Holy Chow, an older woman who adopts sweet senior chow mix Tessie from Andy Carpenter's Tara Foundation makes Andy promise that if she dies he will take care of Tessie provided that her son cannot—which he certainly can't when he is arrested days later on suspicion of his mother's murder (60,000-copy first printing).

With his youthful voice and careful pacing, narrator Kaleo Griffith portrays Grady Kendall, the underachieving protagonist of this thriller. The locale is an unidentified Hawaiian island, and Griffith, a native of Hawaii, adds to the audiobook's authenticity with his pronunciation of local geography and Indigenous terminology. Also adding to the verisimilitude are author Hand's descriptions of Hawaii during the Covid era with its dwindling tourists, meth addicts, and exploitation of natural wonders. Grady, who begins the story naïve and bewildered, soon embarks on a missing person search that unveils the darker side of this tropical idyll. Expect more than a mystery; the audiobook dips into fantasy and often races like a thriller. R.W.S. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine