Tropical Doubts

Tropical Doubts is a mystery and courtroom case all in one. Pancho McMartin is a criminal defense attorney in Hawaii. After losing several cases in a row, he comes upon a case that is very close to home. His good friend Manny’s wife, Gisele, is in a coma after an attempted surgery goes bad. Manny and Gisele are like second parents to Pancho, which really makes the case an important one for him. While trying to determine if there is a possibility of malpractice, one of Gisele’s doctors dies. Pancho teams up with his best friend, Drew, and retired Medical Examiner Padma to get down to the bottom of things. Should the doctors have put Gisele under the knife, or was there something in her medical history that would say otherwise?

The first thing I noticed about the way the author wrote is the easy flow of the story. The book was written with an easy island energy that you only get from laying on the beach and soaking in the sun. Several times in the book Pancho and Drew would head to the beach and watch the sunset. The disbursement of Hawaiian-island details really gave this book a warm feeling, and had it been set on the mainland, I think the book would have had a completely different feel to it. All of the characters were well thought out and very realistic. The relationship between Pancho and Drew was very brotherly yet comical. And the relationship between Pancho and Padma really grew into a special one throughout the story. I enjoyed the bit of romance thrown into the mix. It didn’t overpower the storyline but was just enough to take away from the seriousness of the case they were working. The other characters included the doctors, the doctors’ lawyers, and of course Manny and Gisele. Although there were a lot of characters, the author wrote the story in such a way that the reader would not become confused. For example, he stated which lawyer belonged to which doctor several times so as to not confuse the reader. I appreciated this in the writing. Overall, this book was one that I found very enjoyable to read. All of the questions and loose ends were tied up in the end. I also did not realize that there are two other Tropical books in the series. I’m sure I’ll be picking those up very soon. All the stars to this book!