Debby Atkinson: THE GREEN ROOM The North Shore of Oahu is a serious scene for surfers, and there's big money involved in what used to be a laid-back sport. The "green room" of the title is the underwater space where tons of churning water can imprison a surfer. Add up high risk and high stakes in a cutthroat surfing competition and you get what? Murder....

Debby Atkinson Margaret Coel Chris Grabenstein Louise Ure

PRAISE for THE GREEN ROOM I was ready to pack up and move to Hawaii when I finished reading THE GREEN ROOM. Everyone seems to know everyone else, and surfing is a serious sport. No, it's more than that. It's a lifestyle, a cultural heritage, almost a religion. It goes back to Lono, the Hawaiian god of weather, sports and communion with the ocean. The heart of this mystery is the clash between ancient ways and contemporary values when a couple of mainland promoters stage a new surfing competition. As one character says when surfers turn up dead: "It's Lono. ... He's trying to restore the balance we Hawaiians have lost. These are sacrifices, like in the old days." Maybe yes, maybe no. Storm, the protagonist, is not convinced, although certain aspects of the deaths make her wonder if a local jujitsu teacher is also teaching lua, an ancient fighting technique. Lua bears no resemblance to the act of flipping an opponent on his back. The old Hawaiians gods were fierce. Winners either ate the losers or broke all of their bones. They also collected teeth and put them around the rims of calabashes (bowls made from gourds). For me, the book is at its most gripping when it presents the ocean in its various moods and frenzies. Here's an example: "Then she was in the green room, the ocean's lesson for ill-fated humans far out of their element. Tumbled like rootless kelp, the water pushed her down until her vision darkened. Without any feel for up and down, her eyes stayed open. It was this image that returned to her in nightmares, the darkening green. Powerless as a mote in space, she rolled through it. On and on, whirling weightless and without direction. She would never know why the ocean spit her out a second before her convulsing lungs sucked in sea water." The book moves at a leisurely pace, but once I got into it I read right on through to the end.    —Pat Browning, DorothyL Atkinson brings the Hawaiian surfing culture to life in her latest Storm Kayama mystery. Kayama, a lawyer, attends a surfing contest at the request of a client's son, but runs into her cousin who is competing. However, she's also present when he receives a threat, an ancient Hawaiian weapon that indicates a call to battle. Storm soon finds herself investigating more than just a threat. The surfing competition soon leads to violence and murder. The "green room" is the underwater space where a wave shoves a surfer or where they dive to escape the crushing water. In Atkinson's novel, it's not only an actual threat to Storm's life, but also indicative of the pressure from all sides, the Hawaiian surfers who want to keep the sport pure, the promoters who want to capitalize on commercialism, the clash between cultures. Atkinson uses the Hawaiian culture and language, as well as the surfing story to show the forces that can tear a family, a sport, or an island apart.    —Lesa Holstine, Librarian, Glendale, AZ See Debby's website for more on Debby and her books!