"The North Shore of Kauai is where you'll find the Tiki Goddess Bar -- and murder!"
Reviewed by Tanzey Cutter
Posted July 25, 2011
Mystery Cozy | Mystery Amateur Sleuth
Never in her wildest dreams (or nightmares!) would Emily
Johnson believe she'd go through a messy divorce, find out
she had no money and be so easily persuaded to move to the
North Shore of Kauai to help run her Uncle Louie's rundown
Tiki Goddess Bar. It's been almost six months since she
moved to paradise, and she's actually starting to enjoy
life and adjusting to the island rhythm. Sure there are some problems to work through each day, such
as the aging and eccentric Hula Maidens who dance regularly
at the Goddess, but nothing resilient Em can't handle. That
is until the afternoon she finds the cantankerous next door
neighbor dead in the Goddess luau pit shortly before
showtime. Everyone knows of the ongoing feud between Uncle
Louie and the deceased, but was it enough to provoke
murder? Actually, there are several possible suspects
besides Louie, and the list keeps getting longer as Det.
Roland Sharp proceeds with the investigation. Now, this hunky island detective is more than just tall,
dark, handsome and smart, he's also quite talented
moonlighting as a fire knife dancer for luaus. Women of all
ages drool over Roland, but it's Em who intrigues him the
most -- and the feeling is mutual, much to her chagrin,
since she's one of the suspects. To prove she's not a
killer, Em enlists the help of the Maidens, as well as some
other quirky islanders, to help solve the crime. Of course,
this results in Em almost losing her life in the process. I don't usually read cozy mysteries, but the premise and
setting of this book had me intrigued. I have always
enjoyed books by Jill Marie Landis, and even though this
was a bit of a departure for her, I knew the writing would
be first-rate. What did I have to lose? Well, my
expectations were met and then some. The cast of characters
are so perfectly brought to life, you feel like they are
your personal friends and neighbors. MAI TAI ONE ON is a
delightful mystery full of whimsy, with the right amount of
whodunit and a subtle hint of romance. Ms. Landis'
descriptive prose invokes the sights, sounds and smells of
Hawaii to such a degree that you can almost feel the sand
between your toes and taste the latest drink Uncle Louie
has concocted for the occasion. I really loved this fun,
fresh and fabulous mystery!
SUMMARY
Six months ago, if anyone would have told Em Johnson she'd
end up divorced, broke, and running the dilapidated Tiki
Goddess Bar on the magical North Shore of Kauai she would
have told them to shove a swizzle stick up their okole. As if all that isn't bad enough, when an obnoxious neighbor
with a grudge is found dead in the Goddess luau pit,
suspicion falls on Em and the rest of the Goddess staff.
With the help of a quirky dance troupe of over-the-hill Hula
Maidens, Em and the cast of characters must ban together to
find the killer and solve the mystery before the next pupu
party.
Excerpt1Drinks on the House They would have found the body sooner if it hadn’t been
two-for-one Mai Tai Night. Before all hell broke loose at the Tiki Goddess Bar, Emily
Johnson was hustling back and forth trying to wait tables
and bartend, wondering if her uncle, Louie Marshall, had
slipped out for a little hanky-panky. She couldn’t care less
that the seventy-two year old was romantically involved, but
why did he have to disappear when the bar was the busiest? Drenched in the perpetual twilight that exists in bars and
confessionals, she sloshed an endless stream of sticky,
pre-made mai tai mixer into hurricane glasses. Then, just
the way Louie taught her, she added double jiggers of white
rum and topped off the concoctions with a generous float of
dark Myer’s. Six months ago, if anyone would have told her she’d be
living on the North Shore of Kauai divorced, broke, and
managing a shabby—albeit legendary—tiki bar, she would have
told them to start spinning on a swizzle stick. Em checked herwatch. It was 7:45. Not only was her uncle
MIA, but her bartender, Sophie Chin, was an hour and a half
late. With no time to worry, Em convinced herself that
sooner or later, Sophie would show. The twenty-two year old
desperately needed the job. In the three months that Sophie
had been working at the Goddess, she’d never been late,so Em
didn’t mind cutting her a little slack. When Em’s cellphone vibrated, she pulled it out of the back
pocket of her cargo shorts and flipped it open expecting to
hear Sophie’s voice. It wasn’t Sophie. It was her ex. “Em, we need to talk.” His voice was muffled by the noise in
the crowded bar. “We’ve done all the talking we’re going to do, Phillip.” Em
tucked the phone between her shoulder and ear hoping it
wouldn’t slip and fall into the ice bin beneath the bar. She thought she heard him say, “I want the Porsche.” Em
laughed. If he hadn’t screwed half the women in Orange County they
would still be married and he would still have his precious
Porsche. Now they were divorced and she had sold the only
asset she’d been awarded in the split. She glanced over at the small stage in the back corner of
the room where the musicians were about to start the
evening’s entertainment. “I’m busy, Phillip. Don’t call again.” She snapped her phone
shut, shoved it back into her pocket, and wished it was that
easy to forget how he’d humiliated her. A tourist walked up to the bar asking how long it would take
to get his order. There was no time to dwell on Phillip. She
had to focus on making drinks until Uncle Louie or Sophie
appeared. On stage, Danny Cook, singer and guitar player, began to
warm up the crowd with his rendition of Tiny Bubbles. He
reassured the audience he was not in any way related to the
infamous voyager, Captain Cook, who discovered the islands
and started the first real estate boom. Behind him, his
cousin, Brendon, tried to keep time on a drum set that had
seen better days. Back in the ladies room, the Hula Maidens were fluffing and
primping, adding final touches to their “adornments” before
they took the stage. An enthusiastic group of mostly
seniors, the Maidens relied on dramatic costuming to
distract from their not-so-great dancing. Em topped off the tray of tall shapely hurricane glasses
with pineapple slices, cherries and lime wedges carefully
skewered onto miniature plastic swords. For a final touch
she added brightly colored paper umbrellas—warning flags
that the drinks were packing a memorable headache. She was about to heft the tray to her shoulder and step out
from behind the bar when a ruddy cheeked, overweight female
tourist with a sunburn and a bad perm burst through the
front door screaming for help. Em rushed around the bar. “What’s wrong?” The woman kept screaming. Patrons set down their drinks and
stared. Em grabbed a glass of water off a nearby table and tossed
the contents in the woman’s face. The screaming abruptly stopped. The tourist gasped.
“There’s…there’s… there’s aman roasting…in the barbeque
pit…outside!” “That’s Kimo, our luau chef,” Em said. “In fact, we have
plenty of tickets left so if you’d like to—” “No!” The woman yelled. “He’s not cooking. He’s…burning up!
You have to do something! It’s horrible. It’s…” The woman’s
eyes rolled up and she collapsed. All over the packed room, chair legs scraped against the
scarred wooden floor. Dozens of rubber soled thongs slapped
skin as locals and tourists grabbed cameras and ran for the
door. There was a strange odor in the air. Em glanced
around the nearly empty room. Danny Cook was still singing.
Only Buzzy, the aging hippie who lived down the road,
continued to gnaw on some barbequed ribs. Nothing had fazed
Buzzy since he had some bad mushrooms back in the 70’s. Em propped the unconscious tourist against the carved tiki
base of a bar stool and followed the crowd around the corner
of the building to the back parking lot. Two and three deep,
folks ringed the imu. Em hoped to God, Kimo, the
cook, hadn’t tripped and fallen into the luau pit where he
roasted pig. Em gagged and covered her mouth as she got closer. The air
smelled like a mix of singed hair and burning rubber. “Call 911!” Someone hollered. “Did already!” A tleast five people yelled back. Though the last thing she wanted was to see Kimo roasting,
Em forced her way through the throng to get to the edge of
the pit. Her pulse was hammering even before she saw a man’s
body lying face down atop the coals. Fully clothed in a
pair of baggy navy blue shorts and a stained white T shirt,
he was short and stocky with thick calves that showed above
the tops of his black rubber work boots. The melting boots gave him away. “Oh my gosh, that’s Harold,” Em whispered. Afraid
she’d pass out, she took a deep breath and immediately
wished she hadn’t. She gagged again and tried to concentrate
on the crowd. Kimo suddenly materialized at her side. “Poor buggah,” he mumbled. “Uh oh. Here comes Uncle Louie.” Em spotted her six-foot-three-inch uncle’s thatch of white
hair above the crowd. She shoved her way back out of the
circle and ran to his side. Louie was still spry, attractive, and the picture of health.
He had been an impressionable eight-year-old when Victor
Bergeron’s Trader Vic’s Restaurants were all the rage in his
home town of San Francisco. At twenty, dreaming of
exotic jungle haunts, tiki drums, and cocktails named after
WWII bombers and airmen, he set off to explore Polynesia.
Against his family’s advice, he married an island native,
settled down and established the Tiki Goddess Bar on the
North Shore of the northernmost inhabited Hawaiian island.
Then Louie Marshall sat back and waited for the world to
come to him. Every day he donned one of over fifty loud aloha shirts, a
kukui nut necklace, baggy white linen shorts and flip flops.
Most days he worked from sunup to well into the next
morning. He was tan as a coconut and physically in great
shape. He still surfed. Only his mind was failing, or so Em
had been told. “What’s going on?” He tried to see over the crowd. When
Louie looked down at Em, his expression went blank for a
second, as if he had no idea who she was or what she was
doing there. Em glanced over his shoulder, half expecting to see Marilyn
Lockhart trailing behind Louie. The Hula Maidens were
convinced the woman they nicknamed “the defector” was after
him. Marilyn wasn’t a young gold digger. She was sixty-five
if she was a day. She had danced with the Maidens until she
became fed up with their antics—she wasn’t the first—and
went onto join another troupe. “Someone fell into the luau pit, Uncle Louie,” Em could
barely get the words out. Louie’s face may have paled. He was too tan for Em to be
sure. “Who?” he asked. “Harold Otanami.” “Is he all right?” “He’s dead.” Em figured there was no way Harold wasn’t dead
by now. “At least I hope so,” she mumbled. Roasting alive was too horrific to imagine. “Dead! After all these years.” Louie shook his head. “I
can’t imagine that old bastard gone.” The sound of sirens echoed along the coastline. The Kauai
Police Department’s substation and the Hanalei fire station
were side by side, a good twenty minutes away. Em’s gaze drifted to the luau hut, a lean-to shelter built
not far from the pit. Beneath the thatched roof, the remains
of tonight’s traditional smoked kalua pig lay spread out on
a huge wooden table that served as a carving board. Seeing
the roasted pig carcass complete with its head so soon after
viewing poor smoldering Harold nearly did her in. She noticed some folks were actually taking photos of
Harold’s remains. Others, pale and shaken, huddled together
in small groups. Neighbors were starting to gather,
swelling the crowd. “We’ve got to get these people back inside,” she whispered. “Are the Hula Maidens ready?” Louie glanced over at the dark
green, wooden building that housed the Tiki Goddess Bar and
restaurant. Em noticed most of the aging dancers had left their
makeshift dressing area in the bathroom to join the crowd
around the pit. The huge sprays of variegated leaves pinned
atop their heads stuck out like spear tips.They looked like
a squadron of tropical Statues of Liberty. “When aren’tthey ready to dance?” Without warning, Louie cupped his hands around his mouth and
shouted, “Drinks on the house!”
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