THE TEED-OFF GHOST

The combination of a golfing background, Hawaii, and visitors from the spirit world make this author’s third golfing mystery (The Case of the Missing Links, not reviewed, etc.) pleasantly nonformulaic. Her sleuthing team from San Francisco—June Jacobs and Harry (Win) Winslow—have been hired by their old friend and golf-course designer Doug Banner to investigate a series of problems at the construction of his latest course: part of the new Mauna Makai resort on Hawaii’s Kohala coast. Martha Masters, the resort’s owner, her concierge-historian Charlie Leong, the resort’s all-around troubleshooter Keoki, groundskeeper Ted, and spiritual guru Moke are being plagued by broken machinery, torn-up greens, and unexpected floods that are threatening the course’s scheduled opening, with its attendant publicity. The course’s hallmark is a low stone fence built in the 1800s by William Brush, who was haunted by a ghost of his own: Angus MacNeil, a golf-playing Scottish sailor. Brush’s descendant Meg Hartwell is due to marry gold champ Wally Wood the day the course opens. There’s a secret concealed in that fence that complicates matters further—to say nothing of June’s ill-advised fling with the truly evil Charlie Leong.

All ends well, of course, and most readers will enjoy this refreshingly offbeat excursion.