Blood Jungle Ballet — John Enright

A disquieting string of murders terrorizes the remote, lush island of Samoa. Detective Sergeant Apelu Soifua has seen a lot in his time with the police force, but even he is unsettled by the bodies that have started piling up. At first, the murders don't seem connected -- a local transvestite found castrated and brutalized, a visiting politician who drops dead on the dance floor, a prison guard and an inmate who kill each other -- but as Apelu works with the hospital's new medical examiner to find out who is behind the killings, a disturbing pattern emerges. And the closer they get to the killer, the more destructive he becomes. Can they put the pieces together before Apelu becomes the next victim?