Tropical Doubts

Pancho McMartin is a New Mexico native currently practicing law in Hawaii. Pancho’s hippie parents named the white boy Pancho to help him fit in in Santa Fe.

In Hawaii, Pancho makes friends with his parents’ old friends, Manny and Giselle–a lovely Samoan couple. Manny’s a farmer and Giselle is a popular poet.

Giselle struggled with her weight all her life; Manny’s worry and deliberation between the two led Giselle to undergo gastric bypass surgery. She was doing well and had lost a significant amount of weight, but massive weight loss had led to excess skin. During Giselle’s skin removal surgery, she goes into respiratory and cardiac distress, which leaves her in a coma. Manny is distraught; his beloved wife is only a shell of her former self, and the decisions made during surgery seem shady.

Manny calls on Pancho, but Pancho is a criminal defense attorney–how will he manage a malpractice suit?

Pancho can’t let his friends down. He begins studying malpractice law; he also calls in expert witnesses, one of whom may be the new love of his life, Padma.

Just when Pancho is making headway in the malpractice case, one of the doctors Manny is suing dies. The doctor’s death is first believed to be a heart attack, but later medical examiners find that he was poisoned–guess who the prime suspect is?

Now, Pancho has a malpractice suit and a murder case on his hands. The expert witness fees and regular bills are piling up; his funds are dwindling. How will Pancho survive the chaos?

I enjoyed this book. It was not a typical murder/mystery. I especially enjoyed the Hawaiian scene, and I don’t think I’ve ever read a fiction novel with Somoan characters–as a woman of color, I give this book cool points for cultural inclusiveness.

I also appreciated that Pancho was falling in love with Padma during the most chaotic time of his life–isn’t that how life usually works?

I would recommend Tropical Doubts to anyone who loves a good crime thriller with a twist of romance. Because David Miles Robinson does a good job explaining legal and medical terms, it makes the case feel authentic.

I have one gripe; there were several times I felt Robinson was overly telling readers information that he could have shown. For instance, on page two, Robinson spends most of the page telling readers about a case he had lost and then giving a little detail about Pancho’s divorce. I believe this scene might have been a little more engaging as a flashback.

The book is still entertaining, and readers won’t believe how the story unfolds. As for me, I can’t wait to read more in the next installment of Pancho McMartin legal thrillers.