Hawaii's in a “hot wave” during a dry El Niño spring made hotter by protests against same-sex marriage advocated by the gay and lesbian members of Hawaii's Marriage Project in Plakcy's engrossing third Mahu mystery (after 2007's Mahu Surfer
). Kimo Kanapa'aka, an openly gay Honolulu detective who's investigating a homeless man's murder, gets distracted after a bomb goes off at a Hawaii Marriage Project fund-raiser. Vice-mayor Wilson Shira, an antigay politician, dies in the explosion, while others are injured, including Kimo. As leads on the homeless man's murder dwindle, Kimo focuses on finding the bomber and even goes undercover with the aspiring cop daughter of his boss, Lieutenant Sampson, to attend a meeting of the antigay Church of Adam and Eve. Kimo's lusty affair with his new fireman boyfriend, Mike Riccardi, softens the edges of this sharp whodunit. Readers should be prepared for explicit gay sex. (May)
