Spotted in the Islands--Jack Reacher

In Tripwire by Lee Child, Jack Reacher goes to Honolulu to examine the remains of a helicopter crew shot down in Viet Nam. He's there only four hours and spends his time at CILHI at Hickam Air Force Base.

CILHI stands for Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii. It is an Army field operating unit whose mission is to search for, recover and identify remains of unaccounted for American military personnel, certain American civilian personnel and certain allied personnel from World War II, the Korean War, Southeast Asia, the Cold War and other conflicts and contingencies. Read more about CILHI here.

Teams of officers, medics, anthropologists and doctors make up the units that are deployed whenever a site is found.

In Tripwire, Reacher tries to help an elderly couple who want to find out what happened to their all-American hero son who disappeared in combat in Viet Nam. The Army is behaving mysteriously about the incident and wants to keep it quiet. Someone else also wants to keep it quiet, so much so that he will torture and kill to keep the secret. Throw into the story a beautiful woman from Reacher's past and you have another gripping tale from Lee Child. This is one of the best Reacher books. In this book, Reacher is up against a truly evil villain who is almost his match.

There is not much Hawaiian scenery or culture in this story. Not even many details about the CILHI facilities and operation, but there are some interesting forensic details and some analysis of the POW/MIA problem.