Paul Konwiser’s thriller ISLAND OF SHADOW AND LIGHT is set in the Hawaiian Islands, though its opening chapters are set in New Jersey. John works as an electrician there. He has “Waikiki beachboy looks and the Italian surname,” but he's neither one thing nor the other (being an adoptee, and acutely aware of it). His life, despite the odd wrinkle (his ne’er-do-well brother and a fiancée he can’t seem to stop squabbling with), is comfortable and secure—at least until the news arrives that his old friend has been murdered in the Aloha State. It is on this trip to bring home his body when John’s life is upended.
Konwiser pushes hard at adding region-specific color to the narrative; what the author describes as “Pidgin lite” speckles the dialogue of several Hawaiians. John’s backstory is also deftly sketched, including his struggle to reconcile himself with the discrimination he felt as a result of his dark skin during childhood—as well as the tension between his Catholic, New Jersey upbringing and his Hawaiian heritage (a tabula rasa to him until his teenage years). Plotting is logical and straightforward, and pacing is largely sound, though the heavy burden of exposition borne by the opening chapters means the story takes a little while to get going.
The intrigue surrounding the murder is, of course, at the heart of the novel, and the crime-adjacent family of John’s fiancée offers an entertaining diversion. But of at least equal interest is John’s personal journey, as ISLAND OF SHADOW AND LIGHT offers thoughtful meditations on belonging and what "home" really is. There is, to be sure, a sort of romantic streak about it all; John’s immediate infatuation with a Hawaii he no longer remembers (no less than with Lani, the drop-dead-gorgeous lawyer of the man accused of his friend’s murder) mark him down as naïve in the emotional sense. This is a fault the reader can live with, though, if only because so much of John’s time is taken up with finding a measure of himself he didn’t realize was lost. Few thrillers can boast such morally complex yet winning characters.
Brimming with intrigue, emotional complexity, and action, Paul Konwiser’s ISLAND OF SHADOW AND LIGHT offers a fascinating (and at times exhilarating) expression of what it means to be home.
—Craig Jones for IndieReader