Author: Robert McCaw

Publisher: OceanviewPublishing
ISBN: 978-1- 60809-465-3


Robert McCaw, author of Treachery Times Two, has penned several other books. (2021, Publishers Note) This work is the fourth is a series of Detective Koa Kane series. (Book 1- Death of a Messenger, Book 2 – Off the Grid, Book 3 – Fire and Vengeance, Book 4 – above)
McCaw’s father was in the military and as such he travelled the world, He graduated from Georgetown University and University of Virginia with a degree in law. He was a lieutenant in the US Army and practiced law in Washington DC and New York City. He lives in New York and Hawaii with his wife. (back cover)


Main characters in this series are Detective Koa Kane and his girlfriend Nalani, but there are also middling characters that are common threads in all of these books in this series. (ME Shizou Hori, Detectives Piki and Makanui, Chief Lanua, and attorney Zeke from the Prosecutors office)

In this work Koa has been haunted by a man from his past, who is dead. This book dredges and weaves that memory back into the foreground and nudges that fear into every move that Koa makes. Can he overcome his guilt and anxiety? 

Hawaii is known for her volcanos. McCaw uses them in all of this series. Pele’ is the antagonist is many scenarios for his works and Treachery Time Two also invested in Pele’. For instance, “The seismometer on her computer screen began bouncing off the chart before her computer suddenly stopped dead. She scanned the scene through the windows, now empty holes devoid of glass, overlooking the caldera and gasped.” (2021, p.2) 

911 is dispatched after a woman calls in graves being unearthed from the earthquake. Koa and his team arrive on the scene to find not only the old dead, but a newly dead corpse too. It is a woman. She is not a Hawaiian woman. Georgina, the crime scene tech, finds a point-blank gunshot wound in the deceased woman’s shoulder, but does not believe that is the cause of death unless she lost an insane amount of blood.  The second shot must have hit her heart. She is in her mid-thirties and was pretty prior to her death. The caliber of the gun that shot her was a .22. Strangely the tips of her fingers were also cut off. 

As Koa and Piki weed through the information gathered at the scene he tries to piece together what may have occurred. They find two names that may be leads, Cheryl Larson and Tiger Baldwin. Finally, they narrow it down to Tiger Baldwin, but they get so much conflicting information from interviews that things simply do not add up. Nobody has reported Tiger missing and her office appears to be tight lipped about the entire situation. 

In the midst of all of this an old friend brings a new threat into Koa’s peaceful life. His name is Bobby Hazzard. He is some uppity preppy guy that Koa takes an instant dislike to. He is searching for his roots in the wake of a thirty-year-old case whereby his grandfather supposedly killed himself. Koa alone holds the knowledge and truth to his demise. Can he manage to stave off his guilt or will he come clean and risk losing everything?

Tiger’s murder leads them into a top-secret government black op. Everyone who knows anything is covering something up. Can Koa and his detectives find the reason for Tiger’s murder? 

I have had the pleasure of reading, I think, all of the books in McCaw’s series with Detective Koa Kane. I have loved reading and reviewing them. He has a wonderful way or making the readers feel as if the are part of the story. I enjoyed it immensely and believe you will too.