"AFTER THE BONES: A Novel Inspired by Mark Twain's Letters from Hawai'i" by Mark Hazard Osmun; Twelfth Night, paper, $16.95

Give a group of cooks the same ingredients and none of them will come up with the same dish.

Similarly, authors of historical fiction set in a particular place can call on all the same events, issues and themes, but none will employ all the same elements or tell the same story.

For his novel set in 1860s Hawai'i, Honolulan Mark Osmun stir-fries a chop suey that brings in the rivalry among nations who wish to rule Hawai'i, religious tensions, the kapu on Kamehemeha's bones, the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, postwar friction between Civil War factions, the dispatches from Hawai'i of writer Mark Twain and — deep breath — a love story.

Plus the usual measure of greed, venality, corruption and ignorance that flavors any tale of this kind. Whew!

Like a well-prepared chop suey, it may involve a lot of unlikely bedfellows, but it works — even if the plot does depend on some moments that challenge that all-important suspension of disbelief. (My personal favorite involves the cooperation of an acrobatic tiger shark, but I'm not giving away anything more.)

Strangely, I had less trouble believing in miraculous actions attributed to the mana (supernatural power) of the Old Ones than I did in the behavior of some of the bad guys. But you get that all the time in fiction (and wouldn't it be nice if bad guys were, in fact, always stupid and predictable)?

The unusual flow of events in the book reminded me of "The Timeline of History," a reference text that juxtaposes world history in horizontal columns across the page, so that you can see what was happening in, say, Rome, Peking and Delhi in the same year.

We tend to know history vertically, because that's generally the way we learn it. But we rarely place the time lines side by side, so that we realize, for example, that King Lot Kamehameha V's reign coincided with the Civil War and its aftermath.

Nor do we realize that these events, seemingly so disparate, might have touched on each other — that Confederate ships pursued Union whalers and merchantmen in the Pacific, for example, and thrust their politics and concerns on the troubled political scene in the Islands.

I appreciate a novel that not only allows me some pleasantly escapist reading time, but slips in a little learning as well, or a fresh way of looking at something.

Osmun handles some of the characters masterfully, particularly the male good guys: the rather bumbling but likable pair of actor-con men that sets off the action, suspected of a role in Lincoln's murder; and the sinister British courier who stirs the plot.

All three men have depth of experience and character, all are introspective and all learn from what happens. They are completely believable.

I was slightly less convinced by two Hawaiian women who play key roles; both the love interest and the kupuna seem too willing to throw in with people they don't know very well, just a bit too scripted along predictable lines.

Though it begins as a Hawaiian mo'olelo, then quickly shifts to a tale of fugitives unjustly accused, "After the Bones" soon becomes a sort of caper, replete with double-dealing and role-playing and so many lies and half-truths it's hard to keep track.

The plotting is intricately constructed, with simultaneous story lines and wheels within wheels, with most of the characters unaware of at least some of what is going on at any given time.

This blend of ingredients makes for a pleasurable read with an intriguing it-could-have-happened-I-suppose plot line.

Reach Wanda A. Adams at wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.