Crime novel explores racism and class strife in 1920s Honolulu

“Cult of Ku: A Hawaiian Murder Mystery”

Bill Fernandez

Makani Kai, $11.95

Kapaa native Bill Fernandez, author of “Kaua‘i Kids in Peace and War” and other hanabata-day memoirs, tackles fiction with “Cult of Ku: A Hawaiian Murder Mystery.”

This time the setting is 1920s Honolulu, a town in transition to which his protagonist Grant Kingsley, a war hero and recent law school graduate, returns home.

The scion of a wealthy sugar plantation family, Kingsley’s status is challenged after his mother reveals on her deathbed that his real father might have been Native Hawaiian.

His racist grandmother works to disinherit him, and when she is found dead in an apparent human sacrifice, he is incarcerated as suspect No. 1. But when four more murders of wealthy Caucasian landowners occur, he is released.

The murders, which Kingsley is determined to solve, fuel further social discord in a community already strained by racial tensions following the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom and the end of World War I.

Half-Hawaiian and a retired judge, Fernandez weaves ample doses of local history, culture and social issues into the story, sometimes at the expense of cohesion.

But overall, “Cult of Ku” is rich in setting and characters and provides a revealing portrait of race relations and the stigma of being a half-caste Hawaiian among Hawaii’s upper crust during the early 20th century.