Valley of Refuge

Teschner follows up 2022’s Project Namahana with a plodding thriller that finds Nalani Winthrop weighing the financial opportunity of a lifetime against her family’s legacy in Hawai’i. Winthrop has inherited a small parcel of land that’s of interest to the AinaKai Alliance, a nonprofit scientific organization that wants to research marine life off the island’s North Shore. Selling her land to the group, she believes, would help protect vulnerable native species while providing Winthrop’s family a life-changing windfall. In reality, tech billionaire Franky Dalton—best-known for creating a social media platform that thrives on promoting the kind of incendiary political content that radicalizes its users—funds AinaKai and its activities. Publicly, Dalton claims that his pursuit of Winthrop’s land is about sustainability, but in reality, his ambitions lie in creating a haven for his family, whom Dalton fears may become targets for the zealous user base he’s cultivated. As Nalani wavers, Dalton makes it clear he’ll stop at nothing to obtain the land, and they become locked in a potentially dangerous battle that’s complicated by the arrival of an amnesiac woman named Janice who awakens on a plane bound for the island, and who may be allied with one of them. While Teschner’s themes are topical, and he manages an insightful examination of greed’s destructive influence, he falters in the pacing, generating precious little suspense or momentum. This is an ambitious misfire. (Oct.)