{"id":8178,"date":"2019-09-09T06:43:35","date_gmt":"2019-09-09T10:43:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8178"},"modified":"2019-09-09T06:43:35","modified_gmt":"2019-09-09T10:43:35","slug":"the-honorary-jersey-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8178","title":{"rendered":"****The Honorary Jersey Girl"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"orchid-leis\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

By Albert Tucher \u2013 Al Tucher returns to the Big Island of\nHawai`i in this fast-paced adventure that shows how, underneath the tropical\nparadise veneer, the mai-tais and the surf, you find the same criminal\nproclivities everywhere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Criminal defense attorney Agnes Rodrigues has successfully\ndefended her client Hank Alves against a charge of murder, but apparently not\neveryone accepts the verdict. Now someone is trying to kill him. And because\nthe murder victim was a cop\u2019s wife, it may be the loyal brothers in blue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rodrigues is convinced of Alves\u2019s innocence\u2014he\u2019s too lame to commit an actual murder. He needs protection, and she knows where to find it. She flies ten hours across the country to New Jersey to try to persuade Diana Andrews, a former high-end prostitute who now runs a top-notch personal security business, to take the case. But Andrews turns the job down. She\u2019s had dangerous encounters in Hawai`i in the past\u2014two, in fact\u2014and won\u2019t go near the place. But she does offer to send two of her operatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trio arrives at the remote ranch where Rodrigues has\nstashed Alves and start work. Before long, there\u2019s another attempt to kill him,\na long-distance rifle shot that barely misses. The police arrive to\ninvestigate, but get nowhere. It\u2019s clear that protecting Alves will depend on\nidentifying who really murdered the woman. Rodrigues suspects her policeman\nhusband.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This would be an entertaining book to take on a Hawaiian\nvacation, in real life or the armchair variety. The number of towns and locales\nwhere this investigation takes Rodrigues and crew is like a travelogue. Tucher\u2019s\ncharacters are confronted with significant logistical difficulties and road\nhazards\u2014smoldering lava, deep gorges, torrential rain that turns unpaved roads\nto mud fields\u2014but his easygoing writing style moves them along smoothly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Information that Don Savage has been investigated by internal affairs for shaking down prostitutes starts Rodrigues and crew on the trail of a different motive and reveals a much larger crime in the background. Then the body of a prostitute washes up near the town of Kalapana, and Diana Andrews can help after all, mining her contacts within the relatively small sorority of high-end escorts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a short book (only 129 pages), and I can\u2019t say more about its fast-paced plot without revealing too much. Despite its brevity\u2014another feature that makes for great vacation reading\u2014it\u2019s filled with colorful characters who reflect the diversity of Hawaiians\u2019 ethnic and cultural backgrounds. And how does Rodrigues become an honorary Jersey Girl, itself practically another ethnicity? Like anything else gets done these days: connections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Photo: Emilia, creative commons license<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Albert Tucher \u2013 Al Tucher returns to the Big Island of Hawai`i in this fast-paced adventure that shows how, underneath the tropical paradise veneer, the mai-tais and the surf, you find the same criminal proclivities everywhere. Criminal defense attorney … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"****The Honorary Jersey Girl - like a trip to Hawaii laced with an exciting crime adventure!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1335,52,1288,1567,632,126],"tags":[1133,409,1644],"class_list":["post-8178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-amateur-detective","category-crime","category-culture","category-lawyer","category-police","category-reading-2","tag-al-tucher","tag-hawaii","tag-the-honorary-jersey-girl"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Orchid-Leis.jpg?fit=352%2C428&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-27U","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8178"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8179,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8178\/revisions\/8179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}