Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1264932 in Books
• Published on: 1990-05-28
• Released on: 1990-05-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback

From Publishers Weekly
In another late 1920s detective romp, Beck provides a welcome return for college student and amateur sleuth Iris Cooper ( Murder in a Mummy Case ). While visiting Hawaii and staying at the new Royal Hawaiian Hotel with her Aunt Hermione, Iris is asked for help by her schoolmate, heiress to a pineapple fortune, Antoinette Caulfield, engaged to the very correct Walter Carlson whom she has brought to Hawaii to meet her grandparents. Antoinette believes she is being followed by a woman in white who she thinks may be either a ghost or her long-gone mother. Meanwhile, reporter Jack Clancy, who has helped Iris solve previous murder cases, arrives in Honolulu, and the two of them discover the body of Viola Blodgett, a New England spinster who was in the islands to visit the area where her great-great-uncle had been a missionary. Next the woman in white is found murdered. Old family secrets, a diary and the leper colony on Molokai are all keys to discovering the killer. Beck evokes time and place with an airy light touch that gives her stories the flavor and pacing of the best 1930s movie mysteries. They are a joy to read.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

YA-- This charming whodunit features an amateur detective on college vacation in Hawaii during the roaring 20s. Her name is Iris Cooper, the flapper detective also seen in Death in a Deck Chair (Ivy, 1987) and Murder in a Mummy Case (Walker, 1986). When a wealthy schoolmate, Antoinette Caulfield, asks Iris to follow a mysterious woman who claims to be Antoinette's long-lost mother, Iris takes her first step down the trail toward spine-tingling trouble in the tropics. Stumbling across two dead bodies with Iris is her boyfriend, a nosy news reporter. When their sleuthing uncovers several generations of Caulfield family secrets, they are able to name the murderer just in the nick of time before a third murder can occur. Teens are sure to want to see more of Beck's young heroine.

Keddy Outlaw, Harris County Public Library, Houston

Copyright 1989 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Ingenuous Iris Cooper and her liberated Aunt Hermione prepare to enjoy their vacation in Hawaii in 1928. Events allow them little time in the sun, however: Iris's school chum, sugarcane heiress Antoinette, asks for help in locating her long-presumed-dead mother; someone murders a prim Boston spinster; and Jack Clancy, intrepid reporter friend and co-sleuth, arrives on the scene. Because the author can easily overturn potential plot impediments in a sentence or telescope action from one line to the next, the story line remains light and relatively uncomplicated. Delightful characters, quaint surroundings, shy innuendo from the author of Death in a Deck Chair (LJ 11/1/84).
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.