John Enright

The past just won’t go away. Dominick likes to idle there in history’s comfortable remove, but when his mother dies and he meets the half sister he never knew he had, the past becomes more personal—and the present more dangerous.

In this sequel to New Jerusalem News, Dominick’s perpetual peregrinations are interrupted by a visit to his newfound sibling’s historic Hudson Valley estate, which is also home to a Wiccan coven. In one way or another his departure is continually delayed by circumstance, brushes with the local sheriff, and the history of the place itself—a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Once again, Dominick’s quest for noninvolvement and a purely “observer’s” status is thwarted by reality. In Some People Talk With God, follow the new misadventures of this charming wanderer as he encounters an ineffable world of lovers, schemers, and fanatics.

The first book in the Jungle Beat Mystery series, Pago Pago Tango introduces Det. Apelu Soifua, a veteran Samoan cop who learned his profession on the SFPD. Now back home in Pago Pago, he walks the line between two cultures: Samoan versus American, native versus new.

In this, the third Jungle Beat Mystery, Det. Apelu Soifua has exiled himself to an outer haunted island after the death of his daughter. But developers threaten his sanctuary, and he must join forces with the ghosts to thwart them, in a place where the paranormal is a given.

Chapter 1

To begin to understand it at all Apelu had to jump back two years then connect the dots forward. It was like searching for clues at a crime scene, only the scene he was searching was the recent past as he remembered it. There was a lot to sort through, but in the end for him it all started with the grave.
They had been right; it was a grave, albeit an empty one. The question was if it was a new grave awaiting an occupant or an old grave that had just been vacated. In Apelu’s experience graves were generally filled soon after they were dug. People didn’t go around digging graves on the off chance they might find themselves in need of one. This hole in the middle of a small clearing looked to be several days old. It had rained the day before, and he could see where rivulets had run into the hole around its edge, but nothing had started to grow on its adjacent piles of dirt. The trail they had taken in was also very recent. The kids who had brought him there were pretty useless. One of them, clowning around, almost fell in.

"In 14 Degrees South John Enright sings the lyrical song of Samoa in ways unmatched by anyone, anytime in the history of those islands, and it has been crafted by the hand of a master. This collection stands tall in the first rank of Pacific literature."