ST. ROSE GOES HAWAIIAN

The women of the St. Rose Quilting Bee (An Ominous Death, 2006, etc.) are on their dream trip to Hawaii when murder rears its ugly head.

A discussion at one of the group’s meetings leads Iris, a former travel agent, to collaborate with Judy, a former St. Rose parishioner now living in Hawaii, to arrange an affordable trip for the quilters from Scottsdale. They arrive on the Big Island to be greeted by Lurline, an expert on Hawaiian quilting who owns the Blue Lily B&B. Lurline’s second husband, Sam, a Cary Grant look-alike charmer, is the bus driver, her first husband, Manu, is the cook, and her daughter Makana, who also quilts, helps out too. The tension in the household is clearly traceable to Sam, whose penchant for other women is known all over the island. The quilters are having a fabulous time until Sam is found dead at a luau. What first seems like a heart attack turns out to be a fatal encounter with a small-caliber handgun. The family members are the obvious suspects, but some of the tour group are also brought under suspicion by their links to Sam when he was living stateside. Although they dislike the thought of any of the suspects being guilty, and although quilter Maggie Browne’s police-officer son has repeatedly warned her to drop her amateur detection, she and her fellow sleuths get to work and eventually help the police catch a killer.

Slow-paced, easy to solve and best read as a travel guide to Hawaii.