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It's bad enough that college professor Molly Barda has to contend with a Student Retention Office that is overly flexible with students ("there's no such thing as a wrong answer, just a different perspective"), with rampant plagiarism among students, and with a tiny office (through the flimsy walls she can overhear a colleague's self-affirmation tapes: "I walk with confidence. Women are irresistibly drawn to me.").
But then Molly, who teaches at the College of Commerce in Hawaii, is dragged to a breakfast event for her school's biggest benefactor, Jimmy Tanaka. The event is a bust when the guest of honor doesn't show up and demonstrators lob a human skull into the cafeteria. The skull seems to have come from the theater department's prop room, where Molly's ex-boyfriend, department chair Stephen Park, works.
The prank turns serious when police determine the skull belonged to Tanaka. Molly steps in to clear Stephen, who has become a murder suspect. But he's not the only one. It seems there's a long list of people who could have murdered Tanaka, "The Most Hated Man in Hawaii." Molly has her work cut out for her, especially when she starts to date a potential suspect. As the murder count begins to inch up, can Molly keep from becoming another victim?
While the story is infused with humor, Frankie Bow also balances this with a realistic look at Hawaii - which, of course, includes musubi, that Spam-based snack - and a fast-paced plot. Let's hope this debut novel will become a series. It was fun to spend some time in Bow's Hawaii. The only negative may be that I seem to have developed a craving for Spam.
§ Lourdes Venard is a newspaper editor in Long Island, N.Y.
Reviewed by Lourdes Venard, August 2015
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