Burned and Marriage Most Scandalous

The first, Marriage Most Scandalous, by Johanna is a Regency Romance — which tells all that needs telling about this book or, as I wrote last week “the usual helping of daredevil heroine disdaining dashing hero for a chapter or two before tumbling into bed whereupon both set out to chase the bad guys/girls between bouts of ecstasy.”

Burned is another book in Carol Higgins Clark’s series featuring Los Angeles-based private eye Regan Reilly. Blizzards on the East Coast force Regan to forego a weekend with her fianc?, New York detective Jack (no relation although soon to be) Reilly, to finalise wedding arrangements.

Kit Callan, Regan’s best friend with appalling taste in men, is on holiday in Hawaii. She telephones Regan to say she’s stuck, too, because of the blizzards, suggesting Regan joins her for a “girls only” weekend in the swanky Waikiki Waters Playground when from her hotel room window she see a crowd gathered round a body washed up on the beach.

Needless to say, Regan heads for Hawaii where she finds Kit enamoured of Steve Yardley, a far-too-smooth-talking character for Regan’s liking. Meanwhile, it takes her no time at all to get involved in investigating the death of the body washed up on the beach, one Dorinda Dawes, the hotel newshound and photographer who liked to stir things up — and seems to have stirred once too often.

To add to the mystery a valuable, historic lei made of superb old shells that had been stolen from the museum 30 years before, was found round the corpse’s neck. Police believe Dawes died by accident, that she slipped in the water where there was a strong undertow, and drowned. Regan is not so sure.

Add to the pot The Mixed Bag Tour Group from the Pacific North West town of Hudville where it rains 89 percent of the time, is miserable because of the cheeseparing of the elderly twin sisters who are in charge of the bequest of millions made by local resident Sal Hawkins to bring the sun into townsfolk’s lives by taking groups of five (plus the twins, who never miss a trip) for a two- week holiday at least three times a year.

Meanwhile Will Brown, the hotel manager, fears for his job. The hotel had undergone a complete renovation and to celebrate the facelift there was to be a “Be a Princess” Ball at which the remaining historic Seashell lei that once belonged to a Hawaiian Princess would be auctioned, but a series of petty thefts blocked toilets and minor food upsets traced to the hotel salad bar . . .

So you think I’ve given away the plot, that you know whodunit? I know you don’t. There are so many twist, turns and unexpected surprises in this comic detective story that I only began to suspect who murdered Dawes until the next-to-last chapter.

Burned isn’t great writing but it’s fun, easy reading, just what you need to cheer you up on a rainy day in the beach house. You’ll find it, and Marriage Most Scandalous — if that’s the kind of book you like — at Nigel Khan Bookseller, PricePlaza, Ellerslie Plaza, Gulf City and The Falls, Westmall.