A novel set in Hawaii should be about Hawaii's people in major part.  The real story in Fatal Paradise is the story of the people of Kauai encountered by the Chases in the course of their adventure.  Here are passages describing some of them:

 Web Chamberlain, sugar planter with a penchant for quote from English literature, white male:  Webster Chamberlain sat on the front porch of his up-country plantation house, surveying his demesne -- sensuous hills and valleys as far as he could see, most of it carpeted with spiky green-leafed sugar cane.  The land rolled down from the central mount until it terminated in ten miles of undeveloped Hawaiian oceanfront.
    In the distance below him, a cane fire that had been set by one of his crews before dawn was now a plume of dense smoke.  A lone tractor worked the rubble, pushing it into heaps.  Along the earthen roads that cut through the fields, large yellow trucks covered with the red grit that was the island's soil kicked up great clouds of dust as they hustled back and forth on their cane runs just beyond the reach of his hearing.  The drivers, Chamberlain knew, were bouncing hard against sprung seat cushions, permanently damaging their backs in the cause of the Makai Sugar Company.  He couldn't afford to refit the cabs.  He couldn't really afford the drivers, either.  Land rich but cash poor, for the first time in his long tenure at the helm of Makai Sugar, Webster Chamberlain did not know how he was going to meet the payroll.

Niki Makana, native Hawaiian, sovereignty advocate:  As they were packing up the cooler, Iniki Makana appeared at the upper end of the access road and strolled toward them....  The lissome Hawaiian ambled under the sugi pines that lined the road, wearing a short wrap skirt and a bikini top that celebrated her bosom.  Shadows slid easily over her chest and shoulders as she moved.  Not wishing to appear overly interested, Andrew busied himself with emptying the trash and loading the cooler into the trunk of the convertible.  Niki joined the women, and in a moment Andrew closed the trunk and walked over to the foursome.
            "Hello again, Niki," he said cheerfully.
            The young woman with the same name as the hurricane looked at him with timeless eyes; eyes shaped by a thousand ancestral years of isolation in Hawaii; and before that, a thousand years of habitation in Tahiti; and before that, a thousand Southeast Asian years; and still before, unknown thousands of years in China.  "There was another death today," she said, unblinking.

George Akamai, police detective and descendant of ali'i, the royalty of Kauai:  "Now, put your arms out like this."  Akamai held his arms out in a V.
            Stella followed suit.  The Hawaiian moved behind her, and sighted over her shoulder.  "Wider," he said, and again, "wider.  Okay, right there.  Your position pretty much defines the boundaries of the Makai Ranch.  All that shaggy green stuff you see in there is sugar cane.  There's a macadamia plantation down on the other side of the highway, and some coffee that Chamberlain is experimenting with.  The dark green spots in amongst the cane?  That's marijuana.  The pakalolo growers know which fields are not going to be harvested this year -- there's a two year cycle for sugar -- and they poach on those fields.  The bigger spots, we'll go after and tear out, but the smart guys plant in small clumps and keep good maps.
            "Now, imagine a triangle with its top on Mount Wai'ale'ale and its arms running like yours down the mountain and trough the plantation, and ending at the shore.  Are you with me, as that Perot guy says?"
            "Yes, I've got the picture."
            "All the land you're imagining belonged to my ancestors.  This gorgeous slice of island was in what became the Akamai family for several hundred years.  We lost it in the last century as the whites took over the economy.  Now the state owns the high part, and old man Chamberlain owns the rest."
            "Stella dropped her arms to her sides.  "My gosh, I'm trying to fathom -- well, to have this vast, beautiful  domain, and then --.
            "Yes, the past hundred years of my family's history is full of alcoholism, suicide -- very dark things."

Barry Saga, captain of detectives, martial arts expert, Japanese ancestry:  The gunman turned backwards to get into the car, using one hand to prevent the door from banging his shins and the other to hold his weapon clear.
            At that instant Saga vaulted over the ginger plants.  With hurricane-force winds now blowing against him, he felt as though he were running under water.  Fortunately, the kidnappers couldn't hear him coming, and he was halfway to the car before the gunman glanced back as he slid onto the seat....
             He jumped out of the car, leaned against the door and swung the rifle, waist-high, but Saga was already on him.  With a swift left-handed shuto uke, Saga deflected the weapon, which fired harmlessly into the trees.  He then propelled his weight onto his left foot and executed a sharp mae-geri with his right foot into the man's groin. As his foot returned to the ground and the masked man pitched forward, Saga thrust the tensed fingers of his right hand up in a blazing nukite strike against his opponent's larynx.  The gunman collapsed gasping to the ground.  Saga snatched the rifle out of his hand and flung it over the fence into a taro field.

Li-Ann Low, realtor from Honolulu, Chinese heritage:  Li-Ann Low rose from her chair and swung her slender body on stiletto heels over to the wall ten feet or so away, where she bent down at the knees to retrieve her laptop.  The motion exposed the whole of her left thigh.   Staring brazenly at the Paracorp lawyer, she rose easily out of her crouch, returned to the table and sat down.  Andrew remained impassive, but was thinking how fortunate it was that Harry Wong was not present: this woman would appeal to his most uncontrollable weaknesses.  She could eat him alive.  He stared steadily back at her and by entering her game even in that small way, unconsciously evidenced the extent to which she had begun to exert dominion over him.
            The realtor opened her computer and slid it toward him across the table.  Unbuttoning her jacket, she leaned forward to reach the space bar....
            The ensuing description of the Ranch's history and physical attributes was lost on Andrew Chase, since he had no idea how Paracorp intended to use the property.  He did notice, though, that each time the realtor leaned in his direction to advance the presentation by touching the space bar, her breasts beneath her black camisole-type blouse brushed against the tabletop.

Race Kendall, surfer, private investigator, white male:  "They're filming here on Kauai.  'Jurassic Park.'  I believe the whole crew is staying at the Westin."
            "Cool.  Have you met them?  Omigod! don't turn around, but I think Laura Dern is checking us out."
            "She's probably curious to see what kind of girl would go out with a low life like Race Kendall.  I met her the other day in the hall at the hotel."
            "Are you a low life?"
            "Well, I'm sure she thinks so.  I was going through the trash from her room while my friend Aurora was cleaning the room next to it."
            "Jeez.  I agree with her.  Maybe you'd like to elaborate, before my impression of you regresses."
            "In investigative work, you have to take some liberties, Liz.  It's for a good cause.  I'm doing a pro bono case for the Kamehameha Society."
            "Kamehameha?  Wasn't he a Hawaiian king or something?"
            "He was several Hawaiian kings.  Kamehameha the First was the dude that united the Hawaiian Islands.  The Kamehameha Society is an organization devoted to achieving sovereignty for the Islands."
            ....  "And this sovereignty group asked you to look at the Jurassic trash?  It doesn't make sense yet, Holmes."
            "That's okay, I don't expect you to think like a private eye.  See, I'm completely uninterested in Laura Dern's discards, okay?  The guy I'm interested in was staying at the other end of the floor.  But since I don't want Aurora to know who I'm investigating, I look at all the trash she collects on her shift.  Every five rooms or so, I pick it up, take it to a quiet place, look through it, and bring it back."
            "Uchh.  And you touched me earlier?"
            "I wear rubber gloves on the job.  Can we talk about something else?"