Pago Pago Tango, John Enright
Pago Pago Tango, John Enright
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Pago Pago Tango

Author: John Enright

Narrator: Jeffrey Machado

Unabridged: 8 hr 40 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/25/2025


Synopsis

First in a Samoan-set series featuring police officer Apelu Soifua: "Enright's portrait of cultural collision is the heart of this engaging series debut." —Booklist   The city of Tafuna may be located on a tropical paradise, but it's no stranger to crime. Just like anywhere else in the world, it has its fair share of murder, drugs, and robbery. Which makes Apelu Soifua the perfect man for his job. He's a cop of two worlds: San Francisco, where he started his career, and now his native Samoa.    Following up on a routine burglary call, Apelu heads to a palangi, or Caucasian, neighborhood. The victim, a VP at SeaKing Tuna—the largest employer on the island—reports only a few items missing. But a fatal shooting at a nightclub a few days later points Apelu to the executive's hard-partying daughter. With some help from local reporter Lupe, Apelu chases a wave of violence that stems from the burglary—and seeks out what really went missing. The investigation puts Apelu in over his head and is about to be dragged under . . .    "Perfect for any armchair traveling mystery lover. Enright's descriptions of the Samoan landscape—where the frigate birds are as much a part of the sky as the clouds—are vivid and poetic." —Kittling: Books   "Enright meticulously interweaves the experience and landscapes of Samoa's mountains, rain forests and jungles that he knows so well." —Providence Journal   "The island setting is a terrific backdrop for the story, one that has Soifua bridging the cultural chasm between the local population and the American community." —Mysterious Reviews

About John Enright

John Enright was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1945. After serving stints in semi-pro baseball and the Lackawanna steel mills, he earned his degree from City College while working full-time at Fortune, Time, and Newsweek magazines. He later completed a master’s degree in folklore at UC-Berkeley, before devoting the 1970s to the publishing industry in New York, San Francisco, and Hong Kong. In 1981, he left the United States to teach at the American Samoa Community College and spent the next twenty-six years living on the islands of the South Pacific. Over the past four decades, his essays, articles, short stories, and poems have appeared in more than seventy books, anthologies, journals, periodicals, and online magazines. His collection of poems from Samoa, 14 Degrees South, won the University of the South Pacific Press’s inaugural International Literature Competition. Today, he and his wife, ceramicist Connie Payne, live in Jamestown, Rhode Island.


Reviews

Goodreads review by robin on June 28, 2025

Noir In American Samoa I had the rare good fortune to have a job that allowed me to get to know the territory of American Samoa, the only flag-flying part of the United States south of the equator. I visited the territory twice and was impressed by the beauty of the islands and by the strong American......more

Goodreads review by Ivonne on May 05, 2013

Detective Sergeant Apelu Soifua in Tafuna, American Samoa, makes distinctions between crimes involving Samoan natives and those involving palangi (“white people,” pronounced “puh-LANG-ee”). In the former cases, everyone knew what happened and why and usually “the perpetrator would either be waiting......more

Goodreads review by Tony on October 15, 2012

American Samoa is a place I am highly unlikely to ever get a chance to visit, so I'll probably have to settle for armchair tourism, and this debut mystery is my first visit. The book is the first of what looks to be a projected series featuring Detective Sergeant Apelu, a Samoan who spent his childh......more

Goodreads review by Andrew on July 17, 2016

John Enright's “Pago Pago Tango” introduces readers to Samoan detective Apelu Soifua, returned to the Island after serving on the San Francisco Police Department. Soifua's department has his hands full with a spate of murders – except, Soifua has been assigned dealing with a robbery in a paalangi (o......more

Goodreads review by David on March 29, 2021

There's an interesting sub-genre of mystery novels which are set in exotic locales or on Indian reservations. This book is set in American Samoa, and it's full of interesting cultural and linguistic tidbits as well as descriptions of the tropical landscapes that go along with it. Lots of local color......more