Char Siu

Chinatown, Honolulu, 1954. Homicide detective Frank Yoshikawa has seen plenty of bad deals. But when he steps in as a temporary bagman, collecting protection money from brothels and gambling joints, it turns out to be more than he bargained for and dirtier than he meant to get. In "Hell's waiting room" above a chop suey restaurant on Maunakea Street, violence explodes through a beaded curtain, and someone important ends up dead. Frank is caught between organized crime and disorganized law—between the mob's demands, a department riddled with corruption, and federal investigators determined to bring someone down. The further he falls, the more he's forced to confront what he's willing to compromise and what it costs to walk the line when people on every side are crooked. Char Siu is the third book in Scott Kikkawa's Hawai'i noir series featuring Nisei detective Frank "Sheik" Yoshikawa. With sharp dialogue, dry wit, and a keen eye for the political tensions of 1950s Honolulu, Kikkawa blends historical detail with crime fiction grit and delivers a hard-boiled mystery layered with moral complexity and cultural insight. Readers of Naomi Hirahara, James Ellroy, or Raymond Chandler will feel right at home in the dim alley-ways of Kikkawa's Chinatown.