Graeme KentReseñas

Ben Kella is the aofia (the leader) of his people in the Solomon Islands and a police sergeant working for the Brits as they are slowing turning the Islands over to independence. Sister Conchita is the new nun posted to his island, some of whose people are Catholic but many remain true to their mystical roots. A series of murders and other illegal activities lead the sergeant and the nun on the hunt to unravel this complex web and do their best to stay alive. It is a complex plot, with likeable main characters, and extremely well-written. I didn’t mean to start out reading a series, but I will absolutely read the next two in it.

as a Catholic fan of exotic cultures, this was a great choice for me. The book is well plotted, with a nice mixture of the practical and the suprenatural.

Quando contou pela primeira vez suas fábulas aos gregos antigos, mal sabia Esopo que, séculos mais tarde, elas ainda seriam populares entre os jovens e adultos. Embora Esopo não tenha de fato escrito suas fábulas como hitórias, outras pessoas, vendo como eram interessantes, o fizeram.

Então no século XIX, as fábulas originais foram redescobertas e ilustradas para crianças.

Esta bela edição conserva todo o encanto clássico das fábulas, mas de uma maneira que deleita a criança de hoje. As gravuras e o estilo de ilustração dessa época acrescentam uma qualidade atemporal a fábulas como "A lebre e a tartaruga", "A raposa e a cegonha" e "O rato da cidade e o rato do campo". As histórias são tão atraentes para as crianças dos nossos dias quanto o foram para as crianças de todos os tempos.

This turned out to be an okay book. For maybe the first third, first 80 pages, it was a full-on 1-star. I found it tough sledding. I didn't care for the story nor the characters. But I did fully enjoy the geography lesson(s).

I mean, the Solomon Islands are literally in the middle of nowhere, no man's land in the middle no mans land. There are "millions" of islands in the topical Pacific, but getting to the Solomons is major work for 99.99% of the population of the planet so few people actually make it there. Point being, my knowledge of the archipelago was somewhere between little and none; Guadalcanal, sure, wait... you mean there are more islands?

Reading about the islands – and cultures – and doing periodic Google lookups, I found rewarding. I did find Sergeant Kella's travels and traverses a bit confusing as he bopped from village to village, island to island, but I managed to track it well enough.

Anyway, I didn't really like the main characters Ben Kella and Sister Conchita. For me, as I mentioned above, things only really got interesting when we met Wainoni, The Gammon Man; his shtick was hysterical (I won’t give it away). Alright, I’m beginning to warm up to this story, I'm willing to go 1-1/2 to 2-stars. Then another third of the book, at 160 pages or so, we meet Giosa, The Tree Shouter, another brilliant add to make up what had been more of a lackluster cast of characters.

By the end I was good with 3-stars, maybe it is better but I wasn't pulled along; it's kind of weird as a mystery or crime fiction goes. Kella also emerged as a more interesting character as various parts of his history was mixed in. The cultural and historical aspects of the Solomon Islands was fascinating as well as how a literal speck in the middle of the ocean can be of such historical and geopolitical importance... whether the native Melanesians care to be or not. Also, the time period 1960, post-World War II and pre-Independence seem to be well represented and / or conveyed; a different time and place. I will definitely pick up the other books in the series if I happen to run across.

Contents

Introduction
1 The beginnings
Ancient Egypt
Assyria and Babylonia
Cretan bull dancers
Jewish legend
Ancient China
2 The Greeks
Adventures of Odysseus
Olympic wrestling
The palaestra
The pankration
Prodigious feats of Milo
Early professionals
3 The Roman arena
The Etruscans
Greco-Roman style
Tournaments and festivals
Commodus and Maximian, the wrestling Emperors
Abolition of the Olympic Games
4 Around the world
The Far East
Sumo and ju-jitsu
India and Pakistan
Turkey
Early tournaments and travelling shows in Europe
Sandow and the strongman cult
Growth of world tours
Amateur wrestlers
5 Regional styles in Britain
The Book of Leinster
Annual matches at Clerkenwell
Henry VIII v. Francis I
The Witsuntide Cotswold Games
Devonshire and Cornwall
Cumberland and Westmorland
Highland gatherings
Other regions
6 Early wrestling in America
Indians and early settlers
Abraham Lincoln
Carnivals and side-shows
J.H. McLaughlin and the collar-and-elbow style
Greco-Roman revival
William Muldoon
Yousouf the Terrible Turk
Early free-style champions
7 The Golden Age
Music-hall wrestllers in Britain
Georges Hackenschmidt and C.B. Cochran
Stanislaus Zbyszco, Tom Jenkins, Frank Gotch and the American boom
8 Between the wars
Newspapers stop reporting bouts
Adminsitrative chaos but great American champions emerge-strangler Lewis, Stecher, Londos and the young Thesz
Promoters woo the crowds with women wrestlers
Tag-teams and battle royals, midgets, cages and barbed-wire rings
Gama the Indian champion
Developments in Britain
9 American wresting since 1945
Thesz and Watson
'showmanship and acrobatics'
Demands of television
Boxers-turned-wrestlers
Popularity reaches a new peak
Great champions of the '50s and '60s
Villains and gimmicks
Women wrestlers
Midgets
10 British & European wrestling since 1945
British boxers-turned-wrestlers
The sport becomes organized
Tournaments and television
New stars of the small screen
Wrestling in Europe
Acknowledgments
Index

Graeme Kent's Sergeant Ben Kella and Sister Conchita historical mystery series is perfect for the armchair traveler, and it's so good that I'd almost give my right arm to have more than three books in the series. The first book, Devil-Devil, was a Best Read of 2011, the second, One Blood, was a Best Read of 2012, and Killman came very close to being a Best Read this year. I am so glad I found it while doing some research.

I am of an age where I remember Japanese soldiers being found in the jungle in areas like the Solomon Islands, either not knowing or refusing to believe that World War II was over twenty and thirty years after the fact. Since Killman is set in the Solomons in 1960, this is a perfect thing to incorporate in a mystery involving mysterious deaths.

Another strong element in the mystery is that of religion. Christianity (and not just Catholicism) has a strong hold in the Solomon Islands, but there are still many who hold on to their pagan beliefs with their strong attachments to the natural world. What Kent brought to life for me was the very real danger of a type of religious war involving the differing beliefs of Christians and of those peoples living in saltwater villages as opposed to those living in the bush (jungle).

The various religions aren't the only things that Kent brings to life. The Solomon Islands themselves play a major role. I can feel myself walking along a beach and breathing in the sea air... or being covered in sweat and slapping mosquitoes as I travel through the jungle and up into the mountains. There are political aspects to life in the islands. The Japanese are showing interest in the natural resources to be found there, and the Americans are showing interest in the Japanese. It's a land still struggling through the aftermath of World War II. Of all the equipment left behind by both the Japanese and the Americans. Of all the wreckage littering land and sea from the battles for Guadalcanal and the other islands.

Kent does such a marvelous job of putting readers in the midst of life in the Solomons. Of the tremendous navigational skills of the Polynesians. Of the eighty different dialects spoken there. Of the towering banyan trees, symbols of eternal life. And of island occupations such as that of tree shouter. It is such a rich culture! One of the characters is an academic gathering island songs for a book she's writing. Kent uses her as an example of the danger academics can face in traveling to remote areas on fact-finding missions. (Whom do you trust to tell you the truth?)

The major thing that makes learning about the area so enjoyable is the pair of Sergeant Ben Kella and Sister Conchita. A young Catholic nun from Boston, Sister Conchita chose her name because she thought she was going to be posted to South America, and she wanted a name that the people would find familiar. She thought wrong, but she has adapted to life in the South Pacific beautifully and has become the mainstay of the mission. She also has a flair for deduction which Sergeant Ben Kella reluctantly admits is useful. As Sister Conchita shows us life from an outsider's point of view, Kella has the insider's side of the story, and it's the blending of the two that makes this series so special.

I could wax poetic about this book... the entire series... for page after page, but I won't. This is a series that I hope all of you will give a try, especially if books with a strong sense of place are your favorites. Give island life a try. You can't have two better guides than Sister Conchita and Sergeant Ben Kella.½

This is one of my favourite series. It is set on the Solomon Islands in the 1960s and Kent presents the exotic location and the part pagan, part Christian characters irresistibly. Like Sergeant Kella and many of the inhabitants, Sister Conchita is able to intertwine the culture and traditions of both groups and make them work. As well as police sergeant, Kella is the aofia, a position of spiritual peacekeeper respected by everyone. Serious yet lighthearted enough to be fun, this is a wonderful series.

In this novel there is deep unrest after three deaths occur. Is it possible that a Japanese soldier stranded on the island has committed the crimes, not knowing that the war is over. Learning about the people and history of the area, which was important in South Pacific WWII strategy, is one of the main attractions of Kent's books.

[[Graeme Kent]] ran BBC Schools broadcasting service in the Solomons for eight years and is still involved with the educational system in the South Pacific Commission.½

Kent is known for his Kella & Conchita mystery series set on the Solomon Islands. This book, set in 1942, focuses on a handful of British and Australian coastwatchers on the Solomon Islands trying to keep the Americans informed of enemy activity. It's hard enough to work together but when an American pilot comes down he complicates things even more, in an unexpected way. It reads more like a YA adventure story featuring the crucial struggle for the Pacific.

"The coastwatchers saved Guadalcanal. And Guadalcanal saved the Pacific."½

Mystery set on the Solomon Islands. The map in the front was a plus so you didn't get lost. I also had read several Pacific Island books before this one, so that helped with understanding the native culture & the gap that Kella is straddling. Sister Conchita didn't have much of a presence in the book, but was integral to solving the mystery.

As an Australian my initial reaction to the 1908 London Olympics was of the infamous moment where Australian boxer (and future movie star) Reginald “Snowy” Baker was defeated in the final by English boxer (and future English cricket captain) J.W.H.T. Douglas. The infamous bit was that the referee was Douglas’s father.

Apparently, there is so much more to the 1908 Olympics than infamy; indeed, the London games had everything one needed to make it a disaster, including mad aristocrats, gold medallists who weren’t even aware they had competed in an Olympics, controversy in the Tug of War (they really need to bring the Tug of War back to the Olympics) and Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle inadvertently breaking all sorts of rules and regulations helping a marathon runner cross the finish line.

Kent does a sound job covering the Games, including the chaotic lead up, the often chaotic Games itself and the lasting changes to the Olympic tradition that the 1908 Games wrought. He also covers the some of the more surprising life paths that some of the leading figures took (Baker claimed to have taught Valentino how to kiss properly, while Douglas and his father drowned in a collision in the Baltic Sea).½

Being an account of the panicked scramble to groom a white heavyweight who could redeem the championship from the flamboyant black man, Jack Johnson, who won it in the ragtime era. This is a well-researched journey through a period which is very interesting sociologically. Unfortunately, the author doesn't go very deeply into the wider attitudes of society as a whole, but mostly tells the stories of the boxers and, especially, the managers and promoters involved. As a result, the book is a trifle disjointed and its interest level varies with how interesting the subject of each vignette is; some are quite interesting, many are not.

Ben Kella is both a sergeant in the Solomon Islands police force and an aofia, one chosen to keep the peace between the clans on the island of Malaita. Sister Conchita is a newly arrived American nun assigned to a mission school on Malaita. Their paths cross after the disappearance of a white anthropologist and the discovery of a skeleton near the mission. Both of their lives are in danger until they figure out who is behind the crimes on Malaita. Kella must balance his job as a policeman with his spiritual role among his people.

The location and time both contribute to the appeal of this unusual first-in-series police procedural. It's 1960, and many of the male characters fought against the Japanese in World War II. The police headquarters is in the capital, Honiara, on Guadalcanal. The Solomon Islands are still under British control, but there is a growing awareness that independence won't be long in coming. Many expect that Kella will become the head of the police force once that happens. Kella realizes that his successes are a threat to his superiors and that he can't entirely trust them.

Traditional beliefs and customs drive much of the action in the novel. However, the emphasis on the supernatural is slight. Most of the events related to traditional religious beliefs are of human agency. Some Catholic readers might be bothered by one priest's acceptance and even promotion of traditional religion.

Recommended for readers who enjoy mysteries set in exotic locations.

Set in the beautiful Solomon Islands, Devil-Devil is the first book in Graeme Kent’s mystery series featuring Sergeant Ben Kella and Sister Conchita. Kella, a sergeant in the British controlled police force, is a local islander of the Lau people, he is also a hereditary spirit peacekeeper. Sister Conchita is a new arrival, a young American nun both earthy and pragmatic, her independent behaviour has a tendency to draw her into trouble.

It took me awhile to get into the story, but the descriptions of the culture and scenery of the islands kept me turning the pages. As I got deeper into the book I found the mystery gaining in importance, and soon I was involved in murder, missing people, and smuggled artifacts. Set in the early 1960’s with the promise of independence hovering on the horizon, the people of the Solomon Islands were struggling to blend their ancient ways and traditions while moving forward into a modern future. The British were facing an end to their colonial rule and hoping that eventual independence would ensure that the Solomon Islands would stay under their umbrella as part of the British Commonwealth.

Overall I enjoyed Devil-Devil for it complicated plot, it’s unusual setting and interesting history. The characters are realistic and likeable, so I can definitely see myself continuing on with this series.½

The history in this book is fascinating!

When it comes to convoluted reasons for picking up a book I suspect this is not a bad one. I've had DEVIL-DEVIL on the piles here for quite some time, but I suddenly realised it was the perfect book to read as a comparison with a manuscript I was looking at. Love it when you have a win-win like this.

Set in the Solomon Islands, Ben Kella is a man steeped in island tradition, educated in western tradition. He's worked in London and Manhattan, and is now a sergeant in the Islands' police force as well as holding the hereditary role of Aofia, a peacekeeper of the Lau people. Whilst it might seem that there's little conflict between these two roles, straddling two different worlds is a tricky business when neither side can completely accept you as one of their own. It does seem that tension is a mandatory element between any policeman on the beat and his superiors and this idea certainly supplies that. Just as it's almost mandatory for that policeman to have a colleague in the investigation, and somehow the idea that Catholic Nun, Sister Conchita works here as well.

Set in the Solomon Islands in a time when memories of WWII are still fresh, DEVIL-DEVIL starts off at a cracking pace with kidnapping, a missing anthropologist, smuggling and the curse of a local shaman. Somehow an American Nun quietly trying to dispose of a skeleton fits right in, although don't let that make you think that this book is light or on the silly side.

There are, however, a few predictable elements. Kella is a bit of a loner, fortunately without the lone wolf aspects. Conchita is a bit of a maverick, anti authority, the over-achiever of the pair. Cutting the series a bit of slack, it's not surprising that to get a nun and a local man working together this closely, in this point in history, they had to be exactly what they are. Luckily Kella has a wonderful sense of humour which lightens the earnestness, Conchita has a sense of irony which lessens the potential for her to be a bit over-the-top.

The appeal of DEVIL-DEVIL is however, not just the setting, which was wonderfully, affectionately portrayed. The book gave this reader a glimpse into what is still somehow a post WWII society, firmly based in traditional culture, aware of the incoming influences of Western thinking, and trying to find a balance.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/devil-devil-graeme-kent

The setting is the most memorable part of this book, followed closely by the two main characters, a Solomon Islander who enforces the law, both secular and sacred, and an American nun trying to bring order to a Catholic mission that has gone to seed. A visitor to the mission dies in suspicious circumstances and some rude Americans are far too interested in finding where John F. Kennedy hid out after the attack on his boat, the PT 109, during World War II, all while Sergeant Kella is supposed to be investigating sabotage on a logging operation. My only criticism is that the time - 1960 - is not much in evidence apart from historical markers, such as the presidential election in the states. One character uses the term "multitasking" which was minted much more recently. Otherwise, good fun, and a marvelous setting.

First Line: The Japanese destroyer came out of the night at forty knots like a huge shark snarling across the lagoon.

Sister Conchita may be just a bit too forthright and prone to act now and ask forgiveness later. She's been sent to a run-down mission in the Western District of the Solomon Islands. Her assignment being only temporary, she's still determined to wake up the four obstinate elderly nuns and get their help in cleaning up the place. Her plans don't get off to a good start. On the mission's very first open day, they are besieged by tourists, two of the four nuns are AWOL, and a man is killed in the chapel. Sister Conchita can't believe that the government is content to call a very suspicious death a heart attack, and she is not prepared to let the matter rest.

Normally she would ask Ben Kella for help. Kella, a sergeant in the Solomon Islands Police Force and an aofia (hereditary spiritual peacekeeper of the Lau people), he's assigned to investigate the sabotage that's been threatening the local operations of an international logging company.

As Sister Conchita and Kella begin their investigations, they discover common elements-- especially three strange, unfriendly men who are very interested in the islands of Kasolo and Olasana. You see, it's 1960, and in a few weeks the people of the United States will be deciding whether to vote for Richard Nixon or John F. Kennedy as President. The islands of Kasolo and Olasana are where the survivors of PT 109 hid from the Japanese and tried to recuperate. Although it's not the first time strangers have come sniffing around in search of stories about Kennedy, there's something different... something ominous... about these men.

Once again Graeme Kent has written a mystery that transported me to the Solomon Islands of the 1960s. In this place, at this time, World War II is not a thing of the past. People canoe across lagoons over the easily visible twisted hulks of fighter planes and ships. The "good old boy" colonial government is still at work, filled with officials who do not want to admit that their days are numbered and that the educated young islanders they're ignoring today will be the leaders of tomorrow. Smugglers still know the secret coves and hiding places of these waters, and they use them.

Having a main character who's not only a policeman but a spiritual leader of his people gives the reader a chance to learn the customs of the peoples of the Solomon Islands in a very non-intrusive way. Many times Kella responds to the summons for a policeman and discovers that his services as aofia are really required.

I have to admit that the plot line concerning JFK put me in a pair of blinders that shielded me from almost everything else but Kent's excellent cast of characters. The author seems to know instinctively when it's time to insert a laugh-out-loud funny piece of humor to lighten the mood, and although those old nuns in that run-down mission could be by turns infuriating and heartbreaking, they could also be extremely funny.

Sister Conchita is as headstrong and stubborn a person as one will ever meet, and one has to wonder who's going to give up first: Sister Conchita or the Catholic Church. Sister Conchita and Ben Kella are both outsiders in their own worlds who want to make things right. Pairing them is a bit of genius.

As I said earlier, the plot line concerning JFK had me so engrossed that when the solutions to the other threads concerning the murder of the man in the mission chapel and the sabotage at the logging company site were revealed, I was completely surprised. That doesn't happen very often at all.

When I read the first book in the series, Devil-Devil, I thought it could be the start of something very special. Now after reading One Blood, I know this is something very special. Let this series be your next armchair journey to a beautiful faraway land filled with fascinating customs, wonderful characters, and delectable mysteries. Then your smile will be as big and as bright as my own when I hear of Graeme Kent's newest book.

There’s a lot to like about Graeme Kent’s upcoming novel, One Blood, and I did enjoy it right up to the book’s final section. Unfortunately (and, admittedly, this might not bother other readers nearly the way it bothers me), that is the point at which the novel commits one of the cardinal sins of mystery writing on my personal list of such sins: a dry discussion between characters that recaps everything that has happened offstage while I was reading the rest of the book. The information revealed is key to a full understanding of the action previously witnessed, especially as to what has motivated all the criminal activity, but learning of it in this fashion is always a downer for me as a reader, and makes me wish the author had written a longer book in the style of the 95% of it I had already enjoyed. In other words: Show me; don’t tell me.

But, as I want to emphasize, there’s still a whole lot going for One Blood.

It is the second book in Kent’s Sgt. Ben Kella/ Sister Conchita series involving two of the more interesting new detectives I have encountered in a long time. Ben Kella, in addition to being an aofia (a highly respected hereditary title that places him in the role of “spiritual peacekeeper” of the Lau people), is a key member of the island police department. It would seem that his two roles would clash, but Kella is quite adept at using one role to compliment the other as circumstances around him change. Sister Conchita is a young nun who has been sent to the Western District of the Solomon Islands to rejuvenate a church mission that is slowly wasting away because the resident nuns have become so withdrawn and insular.

One of the book’s most appealing aspects is its physical setting in the beautiful Solomon Islands, an area that is likely still to be relatively unfamiliar to most people. Even more intriguing, these are the Solomon Islands of 1960, a period during which World War II junk still litters the jungles and beaches of that part of the world. As Sgt. Kella and Sister Conchita make their way, separately and together, from island to island, reminders of the fighting are still everywhere.

The book’s core mystery is an intriguing one that will appeal to history buffs as well as to mystery fans because of its connections to American political icon, John F. Kennedy. Kennedy, after his famous PT-109 boat was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer in 1943, spent several days hiding out on two islands in the Solomon chain. More than sixteen years later, strange American “tourists” are asking questions about the rescue of Kennedy and his crew, and they want to visit the islands that sheltered the men from Japanese capture. When one of the Americans is killed at the mission during its open house day, things begin to get ugly and Sister Conchita, feeling somewhat responsible for the man’s death, refuses to rest until she finds out what is really happening on her island.

One Blood will not be published until early 2012, so there is still time to check out the first book featuring Kella and Sister Conchita, 2011’s Devil-Devil. The pairing `combines individual talents and backgrounds to form a unique and effective crime-fighting team – one that is a lot of fun to watch.

Rated at: 3.5½

Great first novel to a new series! Sister Conchita is my kind of girl wild at heart, I would love to hear a bit more description of Sgt. Kella to be more visually able to picture him! I just love any kind of crime / mystery books!

Sergeant Ben Kella plays two roles in the Solomon Islands in the early 1960′s. He is a member of the Solomon Islands Police Force and he is an aofia, a spiritual peacekeeper of the Lau people, a role for which he was chosen when he was a child. Kella is an educated islander, hand-picked by his teachers at the Catholic school to attend a university in Australia. From there, he went for further training in police procedures in Great Britain as well as to work with the NYPD in Manhattan. All of these steps have guaranteed that Kella is accepted by neither the islanders nor the whites, especially those members of the British government who still control the Solomon Islands.

It is the early ’6o’s and tribal customs still hold sway over the majority of islanders who try to balance the old ways with the Christian education and conversions to Christianity that have been changing the society and culture of the islands. Sister Conchita of the Marist Mission Sisters has no such conflicts. An American and a Catholic by birth, she is a missionary by choice, a choice made willingly and bolstered by a deep commitment to the people she serves in the Pacific Islands. Bound by a vow of obedience to her bishop and to the director of her order, she is, nonetheless, blatantly outspoken and inclined to act before giving full consideration to the consequences. Believed by her bishop to be fully occupied by her various duties – looking after the native sisters, exporting the carvings made by the boys in the mission school, keeping the books for the mission station, supervising the medical center, inspecting the other schools in the region, and running the farm – Sister Conchita has no time to get into trouble.

Sister Conchita and Ben Kella could not be more different in their approaches to life but when they are brought together through strange circumstances, they make a formidable pair.

The American nun, new to the islands, makes an interesting first impression when she takes on John Deacon, one of the few white ex-patriots living in the Solomons. John Deacon smuggles antiquities by mixing priceless objects with copies made by school boys destined to be sold in down-market gift shops in Australia and Hawaii. Being called out by a nun, a Praying Mary, in front of his hirelings earns Sister Conchita a powerful enemy.

Ben Kella has a very different problem. Professor Mallory, an American anthropologist, is missing. He hasn’t been seen since he went into the mountains to find a pornographic icon that is worth a fortune. Ben’s life has been seriously complicated by a bones curse, a cargo cult uprising, a person who was murdered twice, and the discovery of the body of a man who disappeared during the Japanese occupation.

It is while Kella is watching the mission cemetery, looking for whoever was unearthing bones for the curse, that he meets Sister Conchita smuggling a skeleton into the cemetery, rather than out of it. There is just too much trafficking in bones, curses and all. The story is full of interesting people living in a part of the world very much underrepresented in crime fiction.

Ben Kella and Sister Conchita are great additions to Soho publishing’s list of memorable characters. They fit right in with those created by Leighton Gage, Cara Black, Jassy Mackenzie, David Downing, Matt Beynon Rees, and Peter Lovesey among others.

DEVIL-DEVIL is more than a great mystery. Graeme Kent provides an absorbing look at the world in 1960, a world only fifteen years beyond World War II. The Allies were successful in driving the Japanese out of Guadalcanal but only after six months of heavy fighting. Ben Kella is in his early thirties in the book but was a soldier fighting with the British against the occupying Japanese forces when he was only fourteen. Communication among the far-reaching communities in the Solomon Islands are conducted by radio each night. The British still control the islands as part of the British empire.

The author makes frequent reference to the Marching Rule, which may be a corruption of the term Maasina Ruru which refers to emancipation from the colonial government by the British. The movement may well have grown out of the respectful treatment the islanders received from African-American soldiers with whom they worked. The islanders formed the Solomon Islands Labor Corps which assisted with the allied war effort between 1942 and 1946. Even more fascinating are the references to “cargo custom”. There is a “cargo cult” in the Pacific Islands that developed from the islanders experience with the American GI’s. Airfields were built on the islands to allow tanks, refrigeration units, guns and ammunition, communication instruments, clothes, and food to be delivered to support US troops. Later, some of the same things were dropped from cargo planes onto the islands. To the islanders, these were gifts from the gods, especially one particularly generous one known as “Jon Frum”. The dark skin natives believed all these benefits came from black American soldiers who marched off the islands to battle but would be reborn and return to lead the islanders against their oppressors. It is thought that the name of this deity came from solders who introduced themselves as “John from America”. There is no question that cargo cults exist; whether the story about Jon Frum is true isn’t important. It is simply a really good story and a believable one in that the name “John” is so simple to remember.

I do love the internet and I love writers who love the countries about which they write and so teach their readers about the people and their customs. Who says mysteries are mindless entertainment?

Ben Kella and Sister Conchita are great additions to Soho publishing’s list of memorable characters. They fit right in with those created by Leighton Gage, Cara Black, Jassy Mackenzie, David Downing, Matt Beynon Rees, and Peter Lovesey among others. Soho publishes books that are unfailingly entertaining and absorbing, showcasing the works of authors who live and breathe the atmosphere of the countries they bring to life on the pages of their books. If it is from Soho, it is worth reading.

Sister Conchita is new to Malaita. In fact, she's realatively new to being a nun, but she's wiry, resourceful, determined, and outspoken. In her training she studied island religions and Solomons culture although she has yet to come to terms with how island customs can live side by side with her Catholicism. On her first day on Malaita she stops an Australian trader from removing protected glory shells from the island. She unwittingly makes an enemy who will try to kill her several times in the future, to make sure she never thwarts him again.

Ben Kella on the other hand was born on Malaita and has a dual leadership role. Since he was eight years old he has been the recognised aofia, the leader of the the Lau people of Malaita Island. In addition he represents the law, for he's a sergeant in the Solomons police force. He stands as bridge between the two cultures but often neither side sees him that way. Ben was brought to adulthood by the Catholic mission on Malaita, and he has an overseas university degree. But he has also rejected the Christian way, deciding he can only follow the "custom" way. He's an imposing figure, black, very big in many ways. The islanders call him a white black.

Kella had some problems prior to this novel, causing the death of a missionary, and was recalled to head office in Honiara for six months. Now he's being sent by his Chief Superintendent back to Malaita to find a missing American anthropologist, and told to focus just on that mission. Two days into his journey and already he is disobeying instructions. A village headman has asked him to assist in discovering what lies behind the unexpected death of an elderly widower. This involves him in participating in a session with a ghost-caller, bringing back the dead. From then we know that life is never simple if Ben Kella is around.

For a relatively short novel, DEVIL-DEVIL is complex. At the beginning I kept feeling that perhaps there had been an earlier novel, but in retrospect I don't think there was. It was just that the author had a certain amount of back-story that needed to be revealed as the plot developed.

Part of the novel's complexity comes from the fact that the author is showing us crimes such as deaths and theft in a Melanesian "custom" setting. There's an interesting but somewhat peculiar relationship developed between the policeman, who must be middle-aged, having fought in the war against Japan in early 1940s, and the young nun, just in her twenties. Adding to the complexity is the network of relationships and obligations that bind the islanders to each other, which outsiders like Sister Conchita and Kella's Chief Superintendent have great difficulty in understanding.

I found the final few pages a bit of a let-down and a bit tedious. It seems to rush the final explanations by telling rather than letting the reader form these conclusions from what they've seen. Nevertheless an interesting novel that holds that attention all the way.½

First Line: Sister Conchita clung to the sides of the small dugout canoe as the waves pounded over the frail vessel, soaking its two occupants.

It is 1960 in the Solomon Islands, which saw some of the fiercest fighting during World War II (Guadalcanal among other battles). Memories of those days are still vivid. Sergeant Ben Kella of the Solomon Islands Police Force knows those days quite well, but he has many other things on his mind. Educated by the whites and now a member of their police force, Kella is still the aofia (spiritual peacekeeper) of the Lau people. His dual roles mean that neither the British colonial government nor the native peoples trust him 100%.

New to the islands is Sister Conchita, a young Catholic nun from Chicago who chose her name because she thought she was being posted to South America and wanted to fit in. She wants to learn native customs and to help these people as much as she possibly can. Her vows of poverty and chastity won't be problems for her, but her vow of obedience may be a backbreaker. Her impetuous desire for doing the right thing means bent and broken rules everywhere she goes:

" In any case, it had always been her philosophy that it was better to apologize profusely after the event than to neglect an opportunity when it arose. "

Sergeant Kella has been busy. Within a matter of a few days, he's been cursed by a shaman, stumbled across evidence of an uprising, and been unable to find a missing American anthropologist. When he stops at one of the mission stations, he finds Sister Conchita trying to bury a skeleton on the sly. Little does he know that he'll soon be teaming up with Sister Conchita to solve a series of murders that tie in with all these strange happenings.

Plain and simple-- I loved this book. Author Graeme Kent was a Schools Broadcasting Officer in the Solomon Islands during the 1960s, and he immersed me in the culture of the place without being heavy-handed or pedantic. He also painted a vivid portrait of the Solomons during World War II with a very few strokes... just enough to fire the imagination and illuminate portions of the plot.

The two main characters, Sergeant Ben Kella and Sister Conchita, are two of the most interesting characters that I've come across recently in crime fiction. With their differences in culture and temperament and their similar penchant for doing what they think right regardless of the prattling of their superiors, they are going to make a wonderful crime-fighting team. (They're pretty good at cracking jokes, too.)

I can't wait for more books to appear in this series!