Em Johnson left the mainland for Kauai after her divorce. Her uncle’s bar, the Tiki Goddess, was struggling, and she came to help. She did not come to solve murders, but the murders came to her.
In Mai Tai One On (2011), a dead body turns up in the luau pit at the Tiki Goddess. The bar’s staff become suspects, so Em and the Hula Maidens, the senior dance troupe that performs at the bar, decide to find the real killer themselves. It works, more or less, and the pattern holds through five more books. Each time, trouble arrives at or near the Goddess, and Em ends up investigating.
The Hula Maidens are a big part of what makes the series work. They are a group of older women who have lived on the island for years and know everyone. They dance, they gossip, and they are surprisingly effective at poking into things that probably should be left to the police.
Jill Marie Landis, who lives on Kauai herself, writes Em as practical and grounded. She is not a detective and does not pretend to be one. She is a woman running a bar who keeps finding herself in the middle of things. The Hawaiian setting, the bar, and the Maidens provide the backdrop for mysteries that mix humor with danger.
Reading Order
See the complete A Tiki Goddess Mystery reading order for all books in the series.