Wipeout!
 “Delivering
babies is not in my standard contract,” says Kai Cooke to
his very pregnant client, Summer McDahl. Summer has hired the “Surfing
Detective” with an unusual request: to prove her husband
is dead. Corky McDahl wiped out on Christmas Eve in heavy surf
at Waimea Bay and vanished. Now it’s February, Summer’s
baby is soon due, and Corky’s life insurance company refuses
to pay a $200,000 policy because of several “red flags”:
bank accounts cleaned out, credit cards run up over the limit,
BMW convertible missing . . . . Cooke too is dubious, but Summer’s
plight and her wad of hundred-dollar bills persuade him to investigate.
This unlikely case, which he assumes will go nowhere fast, leads
the P.I. on a twisted treasure hunt on three islands with a redhead
named Maya who also claims
to be Corky’s widow. Along the way Cooke keeps wondering: Did Corky perish
at Waimea Bay, or pull off the most daring skip-trace ever? The answer turns
out to be more complicated than the question would suggest, involving the islands’ big-wave
riding and drug trafficking scenes, not to mention the competing claims of Corky’s
two “widows.” In the end Summer delivers her baby, but can Cooke
deliver the goods? Is Corky McDahl dead or alive? Though the “Surfing Detective” seems
the last to know, his client gets a great deal more than her wad of hundreds
paid for.
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