One Blood
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
An “appealing and enjoyable” crime novel set in the South Pacific of the early 1960s (Booklist).
Ben Kella has his hands full. A sergeant in the Solomon Islands police force, as well as an aofia, a hereditary spiritual peacekeeper of the Lau people, he’s called to investigate acts of sabotage that threaten the local operations of a powerful international logging company.
Meanwhile, Sister Conchita, a young nun with a flair for detection, has been forced to assume command of a run-down mission in the lush Western District of the Solomon Islands. When an American tourist is murdered in the mission church, she and Kella join forces to uncover the links between these goings-on and a sudden upsurge of interest in John F. Kennedy—who was once a wartime US naval officer in the area but now, in 1960, thousands of miles away, is about to become the thirty-fifth American president.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kent's second mystery set in the Solomon Islands in 1960 (after 2011's Devil-Devil) will appeal to history buffs and those fond of exotic locales. During the open day held by the Marakosi Mission for villagers from the surrounding islands, Sister Conchita encounters a frightened American tourist, Ed Blamire, who has sought refuge in the mission church. Soon afterward, Blamire's body turns up on a ceremonial bonfire that's been prematurely set ablaze. A distraught Conchita vows to discover the cause of his death. Meanwhile, police sergeant Ben Kella investigates sabotage at a logging operation near where then naval lieutenant John Kennedy spent the night after the sinking of PT109 in 1943. Only after Conchita and Kella survive separate attempts on their lives do they suspect their cases are linked through the sins of the present and not-so-distant past. The Solomons, then a British protectorate, come fully alive in this absorbing adventure.
