DEVIL-DEVIL, Graeme Kent

When it comes to convoluted reasons for picking up a book I suspect this is not a bad one. I've had DEVIL-DEVIL on the piles here for quite some time, but I suddenly realised it was the perfect book to read as a comparison with a manuscript I was looking at. Love it when you have a win-win like this.

Set in the Solomon Islands, Ben Kella is a man steeped in island tradition, educated in western tradition. He's worked in London and Manhattan, and is now a sergeant in the Islands' police force as well as holding the hereditary role of Aofia, a peacekeeper of the Lau people. Whilst it might seem that there's little conflict between these two roles, straddling two different worlds is a tricky business when neither side can completely accept you as one of their own. It does seem that tension is a mandatory element between any policeman on the beat and his superiors and this idea certainly supplies that. Just as it's almost mandatory for that policeman to have a colleague in the investigation, and somehow the idea that Catholic Nun, Sister Conchita works here as well.

Set in the Solomon Islands in a time when memories of WWII are still fresh, DEVIL-DEVIL starts off at a cracking pace with kidnapping, a missing anthropologist, smuggling and the curse of a local shaman. Somehow an American Nun quietly trying to dispose of a skeleton fits right in, although don't let that make you think that this book is light or on the silly side.

There are, however, a few predictable elements. Kella is a bit of a loner, fortunately without the lone wolf aspects. Conchita is a bit of a maverick, anti authority, the over-achiever of the pair. Cutting the series a bit of slack, it's not surprising that to get a nun and a local man working together this closely, in this point in history, they had to be exactly what they are. Luckily Kella has a wonderful sense of humour which lightens the earnestness, Conchita has a sense of irony which lessens the potential for her to be a bit over-the-top.

The appeal of DEVIL-DEVIL is however, not just the setting, which was wonderfully, affectionately portrayed. The book gave this reader a glimpse into what is still somehow a post WWII society, firmly based in traditional culture, aware of the incoming influences of Western thinking, and trying to find a balance.