“Under the Tree Ferns is an intriguing mystery set in Puerto Rico and Idaho. It moves between different milieus, a dead body, and two disparate investigators with the dexterity of a dancer, opening in a steamy mountain rainforest where a woman struggles to understand what has happened to her.
The prologue leads to a mystery which unfolds in 1942 Puerto Rico with the discovery of a corpse in the jungle. The forest is rumored to be haunted, so those tasked with locating and retrieving the body are terrified – except for police chief Moreno.
What does this event have to do with 2012 Idaho, which pops up in the third chapter? Plenty, because a family secret that played out in the jungles of Puerto Rico reaches out to involve a modern family. Pamela Palmer gets a job on the island, only to discover that her new venture immerses her in revelations about the past that could endanger her future. Read More
Kathryn L. Robinson’s story moves back and forth in time and place, but keeps these shifts logical and easy to understand as Pamela reflects on the events that brought her to Puerto Rico, and then led her to abandon a sunny island climate for the faraway chill of Idaho.
She takes the time to embed the story with a solid sense of place, capturing Puerto Rico’s culture and changes through succinct descriptions:
Below, the marketplace sprawled across a courtyard the size of a city block. Of the dozens of stands, each little more than one long table and a chair, fewer than half were in use, displaying dwindling piles of tropical fruits and vegetables—green limes, yellow bananas, variegated mangoes and squash. Shoppers wandered from stand to stand, the women shaded by parasols. Vendors wore large hats to shield their faces from the sun; their calls occasionally rose above the general din. “You should see this when there’s no war. Tables sag with items from all over the Caribbean, and shoppers barely have room to stand.”
As 2012 turns into 2013, Pamela reflects on the lasting impact of her ex-husband’s Gómez clan, the consequences of her ongoing passivity in the face of challenge, and the impact of the unresolved Morrison case on her new marriage to upper-class Luis.
The fact that the Palmer clan abhors confrontation doesn’t help Pamela’s struggle with her mother-in-law, her family’s heritage and choices, and her difficult contemplation of Laura Morrison’s death in the rainforest. Her discovery of her family’s hidden tragedy leads to further anguish as Pamela struggles while other characters, including treasure hunter Henry Erlich, matriarch Angela Colón and her adopted son Eduardo, and possible murderer José Martín, are drawn into murky waters of connection and dysfunction.
When a scandal Pamela’s mother professes to know nothing about produces new evidence that she was involved, the quest for truth embraces characters who each hold special interests in the past and a revised notion of what the future will bring.
Robinson’s story neatly merges the disparate worlds of Idaho and Puerto Rico, the questions involving family legacy and truths, and the impact of a woman’s murder as the years pass.
Libraries and readers seeking a novel nicely steeped in Puerto Rican culture, investigative twists and turns, and the intersection of family truths and lies will welcome how Under the Tree Ferns provides sinuous connections between characters whose ambitions and perceptions shift as new realizations emerge.
Replete with a powerful sense of community and individual responsibility, Under the Tree Ferns is a story that proves hard to put down, coming full circle in an unexpected manner to reveal a real treasure of discovery.”