When a weekend of horseback rides and beachcombing at the old Haleiwa Hotel turns deadly, Mina Beckwith and Ned Manusia are on the case. The unlikely pair—she a journalist, he a playwright—find themselves once again on the trail of a killer in 1930s Honolulu, where sugar barons cavort at their beachfront mansions while unrest among the working class grows. Their investigation places them in the midst of hot-headed union organizers and the crème de la crème of Honolulu society as well as the riff-raff of the city’s backstreets.

Honolulu in the 1930s is a unique (and volatile) mix of the provincial and the urban, East and West, islander and mainlander. Familiar characters from Ned and Mina’s previous adventure, Murder Casts a Shadow, return to lend a hand in another thoroughly entertaining whodunnit from author and playwright Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl.