For Honolulu police detective Henry “Hank” Benjamin, “trouble in paradise” isn’t the half of it. Though he’s lived on Oʻahu for years, this former New Yorker is still treated like an outsider, thanks in large part to his aggressive and blunt demeanor—a stark contrast to the local approach. Yet he finds himself amidst a local crisis that has become his obsession. A string of murders of local women that began with his wife, Maya, has been terrorizing the community; and Benjamin is haunted by the fact that the rest of the victims seem to be connected to him, too.

When he’s paired up with fellow detective Kaelani Kanakina—another troubled outsider, albeit local—the pieces of this puzzle become clearer, and their personal connections to the crimes can’t be pushed back into the shadows. As the duo closes in on their suspect, they shuttle through the underbelly of Oʻahu and its corruption, both within the local government and beyond it. What they find pushes both detectives to their edge.

TO CATCH THE SETTING SUN conveys many of Hawaiʻi’s real problems with clear-eyed respect. For that alone, author Richard I. Levine deserves credit. Readers will be impressed with this, and with how, as complicated as Benjamin is, he willingly looks at these truths. He’s got a heart beneath his hard shell that matches his integrity. Those who enjoy crime stories and police procedurals will thrive on the journey Levine travels in TO CATCH THE SETTING SUN, thanks to a richly drawn cast of characters and a vividly crafted setting.

In spite of these strengths, the plot and main character possess a certain typicality; Detective Benjamin does get called “Dirty Henry” more than once. There’s also a perspective-switching tendency that doesn’t quite fit the genre or story. It is easy to get lost in this approach—and because of it, much of the suspense flattens just as it’s beginning to build. By about halfway through, we know whodunit. The process of stopping the culprit definitely ramps up the tension, but a bit too late to make up for this. TO CATCH THE SETTING SUN also relies more on spoken exposition than one would expect from a crime novel, which undermines the storytelling. Levine is at his best when the action has space to unfold; his fascinating and true-to-life characters carry it along excellently when given the chance.

Though it flags in these places, and might leave some readers wanting more, TO CATCH THE SETTING SUN is a creative take on serial murder mysteries. It does justice to Hawaiʻi as Benjamin chases down justice for his wife and, ultimately, for himself.

TO CATCH THE SETTING SUN navigates the underbelly of Oʻahu through the lens of Honolulu police detective Henry Benjamin, and author Richard I. Levine’s understanding of the island’s sociocultural dynamics shines through.

~Jennifer Weatherly for IndieReader