national media outlets, with more than 2,000 print pieces carrying her byline to date. Her work has garnered multiple awards, including a 2015 Lowell Thomas Award for Travel Journalism. For more than a decade, she served as the poetry editor at a national literary journal, and her poetry and short fiction have been widely published. Among her favorite writing credits are a series of original literary essays commissioned by the Celestial Seasonings tea company that appeared on the artfully illustrated boxes of ten separate tea flavors. She continues to travel in her capacity as the Global Researcher and Writer for the Association for Safe International Road Travel, and as a monthly columnist for Global Traveler magazine.
Bokur applied the Page 69 Test to The Lava Witch, the third Dark Paradise mystery, and reported the following:
On page 69 Detective Kali Mahoe Kali has elicited her friend Elvar Ellinsson’s help in reexamining a crime scene in a remote section of forest. She feels that she or the crime scene investigators may have missed or overlooked some small detail that might help shed light on the violent death of a young woman whose body had been discovered in the area.Visit Debra Bokur's website.She smiled, enjoying the cadence of his voice, and the slight accent that betrayed his heritage.In my estimation, Page 69 of The Lava Witch is an excellent dive into the third book of the series, and captures the theme of witchcraft and mysterious happenings in the mountains of Maui. At the same time, it’s a nice moment that reveals the burgeoning relationship between Detective Kali Mahoe and Elvar Ellinsson.
“Hilo’s not exactly respectful of evidence,” she admitted. “I’ll be fired or transferred to a desert somewhere if my dog destroys a crime scene.”
Elvar grew serious. “What is it that we’re looking for?”
Kali frowned. “I’m not really sure,” she admitted. “There’s been a report of some odd activity taking place in a remote area of the forest, up toward the summit of a path where there are a couple of clearings.” She looked at him, gauging his reaction. “A girl was found there a few days ago. She’d been murdered. We don’t know if these recent reports of strange events might be connected.”
He scratched his head. “I heard something about that. What should I keep a lookout for?”
“I wish I knew,” she said. She grinned, reluctantly. “That would make everything a whole lot easier. But some things to watch for are places that might have been used very recently as a campfire, or anything—words, symbols—that might be carved into tree trunks or drawn on the surface of rocks. And stay on the lookout for small dolls or carvings of figures. They could be very small, maybe just an inch or two, and made from stone or wood, or even cloth.”
He looked at her, curious. “You mean like a voodoo doll?”
She nodded, glancing up from the road to look at him with registered surprise.
“Yes, that’s actually a pretty good description. Do you know very much about voodoo practices? Is there something like that in Iceland?”
He nodded. “Oh, yes,” he said. “In the small village of Hólmavík, we have an entire museum devoted to necromancy. Some of it is quite dark, though tourists seem to find it amusing. And our history has been no kinder to witches than has yours. In the 1600s, people accused of witchcraft…
Q&A with Debra Bokur.
The Page 69 Test: The Fire Thief.
The Page 69 Test: The Bone Field.
My Book, The Movie: The Lava Witch.
--Marshal Zeringue
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