The Sand People (Paperback)

Karen Langford has come to Maui with Kevin, her self-absorbed engineer husband of ten years. She misses the kids, she's concerned about how she'll look in a bikini, but mostly she's counting on the allure of Hawaii to turn Kevin's eyes away from his laptop and toward her. But when Karen meets Steve, a charming time-share salesman with a past, she and Kevin are swept into a spiral of betrayal, conflict and violence that everyone will call a tragedy. Some will call it murder. Their hope for rescue depends on Mitch, an alcoholic minister running from an unspeakable horror. But pathetic Mitch cannot even help himself, until he is brought face to face with the event that has ruined his life. The Sand People takes us to beautiful Maui, amidst posh beachfront resorts, then draws us deeper into the Maui most tourists never see: rural onion fields, the county jail, a funeral and a run-down bar far from the beachfront glamour. It blends laughter and tears in grappling with issues that plague our lives: broken relationships, addiction, shame and death -- and pointing toward the victory of hope over failure.