One Blood: A Sergeant Kella and Sister Conchita Mystery (Sister Conchita and Sergeant Kella) [ハードカバー]

For me, successful fiction is either character-driven or plot-driven. Truly great fiction writers (think John Irving) combine the best elements of both. In this first book I've read in the Sergeant Kella/Sister Conchita series, Author Graeme Kent skillfully concentrates on the character factor, sometimes at the expense of the story line. His protagonists are muscular, sympathetic, and sufficiently fleshed-out to create maximum likability. Solomon Islander Kella is a former rugby player not loathe to use his fists, while Sister Conchita is an outspoken young nun with an eye toward police procedural matters. The two work well together and there is a soupcon of romantic chemistry, but author Kent prefers not to tread in that direction.

The plot, delineated by other reviewers above, is rather thin. Though hardly compelling, there is enough of a story line to just barely hold the pages together. This lack of page-turning quality made me put the work down numerous times, but I kept returning for Kent's strength: how the characters played out. Kent is a superb writer with superior auctorial skills, and this prompted my 4-star rating. For readers who value good writing over mediocre plotting, this book is worth picking up.

With One Blood, Graeme Kent continues his series with Sergeant Kella and Sister Conchita, set in the Solomon Islands, now in the fall of 1960. The plot revolves around several mysteries: trouble at a logging camp in the Western Solomons, outside of Kella's home territory of the island of Malaita; a death at an open house of a missionary station in the temporary charge of the nervy Sister Conchita; and sneaky doings revolving around the two tiny islands that the survivors of the PT-109 stumbled on in World War II--and their relation to JFK, then in a bitter race with Richard Nixon for the presidency in faraway America.

Kent paces the story well, and spends much less time than in Devil-Devil, the first book in the series, setting up the mystery. We're introduced to some believable characters: Kent lived in the Solomons for a number of years, and has a knack for the telling local detail. Unfortunately, he also makes some slips: he has one character talking about "multitasking"--a term that was first used, according to Webster's, in 1966; in another instance, someone talks about J. Edgar Hoover's secret files on politicians as if it were common knowledge in 1960, which they surely weren't. Not to mention referring to Hoover as "Herbert" by mistake, too.

Still, the book is, in the end, a generally good read, despite these glitches. I just hope that the next installment delves a bit more into life in the Solomons in that time period, and a bit more into the inner and outer life of Kella, a character with rich possibilities.

Mystery novels in exotic locales have always interested us but the new release One Blood set in Solomon Islands was probably one of the most refreshing ones that came to our desk in 2012. A cozy mystery in nature and the second book in a series by Graeme Kent, this book takes the reader to the heart of an investigation by a nun and a native police Sergeant.

A Brief Summary:

Ben Kella, sergeant in the Solomon Islands Police Force, as well as an aofia, a hereditary spiritual peacekeeper of the Lau people, is called to investigate acts of sabotage that threaten the local operations of a powerful international logging company. At the same time, Sister Conchita, a young nun who has been sent to Western part of Solomon Islands gets her hands dirty with a suspicious death of an American tourist.

As each of them progress with their investigation, their path cross and finally Conchita and Kella join forces to uncover the links between these goings-on. They detect arrival of some American tourists who show unusual interest in John F. Kennedy, who was once a wartime U.S. naval officer in the area but now, in 1960, thousands of miles away, about to become the thirty-fifth American President.

Although it's not the first time tourists and strangers have come to the Islands to find out more about the Kennedy's case, American Tourist's murder and the sabotage in the logging company's facility at the same time seem less of a coincidence.

Our Take:

Graeme Kent was head of BBC Schools broadcasting in the Solomon Islands for eight years. The experience of living in such beautiful place in the Pacific Ocean has given him an advantage in painting a unique picture of life and culture in this exotic spot. His second novel in Sister Conchita and Sergeant Kella Mysteries, therefore, has a sort of appeal in which is hard to find in many other stories. The author certainly takes his time to layout the foundation for the mystery: The plots are very slow moving and Kent provides a lot of back-stories and information about the native people's traditions and the local setting.

The JFK plot to me seemed a bit unrealistic and had some holes in it but at the same time I was curious to see how the story would end. There is an interesting twist at the end which I didn't expect and to the ending was satisfactory. Using humorous language and sharp funny lines was also a plus in terms of writing.

This is a slow moving story but the setting is so unique that it absorbs the reader to end. Definitely a good read.