Emerald Flash (John Caine Mysteries)
PI John Caine's fourth adventure opens promisingly with a wild  street shootout at a Triad funeral in San Francisco, but the  brakes are stomped when the Vietnam-era Navy SEAL catches a  round in his back and the medics take over. Many chapters of  rest and rumination follow. All Caine wants to do is get back to  his sailboat, berthed in Pearl Harbor, and heal his wounds, but  a female cop charges him with murder for the death of an  innocent bystander at the melee. The body counts racked up in  his previous exploits, plus the new incident, may have given  Caine a reservation at the gray bar hotel. Against this fairly  realistic handling of legal maneuvering and recovery (including  the realization that he experienced life-altering post-traumatic  stress disorder after Nam) hovers the shadowy question of who  ordered the sniper to open fire. Knief (Diamond Head; Sand  Dollars; Emerald Flash) also offers his weakened hero a superbly  romantic case back in Hawaii: the discovery of the underwater  tomb of the legendary King Kamehameha, filled with treasure from  a wrecked Spanish galleon (which proves the islands were visited  before Cook) all threatened by a newly erupting volcano. These  plot lines never quite mesh but Knief keeps everything moving so  that many readers may never notice though fans of the sensitive  warrior sub-genre might experience a vague wish for a little  less sensitive and a lot more warrior before reaching the last  page. (June 4)Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.