The Musubi Murder

June 8, 2015
Professor Molly Barda, the narrator of the pseudonymous Bow’s winning first mystery, is pursuing tenure at Hawaii’s Mahina State University. The academic politics of Mahina are tougher than most, but Molly plays the game quietly until guest of honor Jimmy Tanaka, the owner of the Merrie Musubi fast-food chain and a potential major donor to Mahina, fails to show for a big reception at the school cafeteria. Molly unwillingly enters a search for Tanaka, and in the process finds herself falling for the man’s competitor, Donnie Gonsalves, the owner of Donnie’s Drive-Inns. Amid faculty grudges and unpopular student retention policies, Molly searches for the key to not just the missing Musubi mogul but a nasty killing. Bow, who teaches at a public university, uses wry humor to alleviate the horror of her heroine’s situation and is familiar enough with island culture to know the popularity of Musubi rice balls with a heart of Spam.

May 15, 2015
Murder complicates a college professor's already stressful life. Mahina State University is far from paradise for Molly Barda. The ceiling in her office is crumbling, her office furnishings are limited to a desk, a coffee maker, and a yoga ball, her students are barely literate, and her dean, Bill Vogel, thinks the appropriate punishment for plagiarists is an opportunity to rewrite the offending paper. As a member of the Department of Management in the College of Commerce, Molly is forced to mingle with "our Friends in the Business Community" at events like the breakfast honoring Jimmy Tanaka, "The Most Hated Man in Hawaii." The owner of Merrie Musubis, a fast-food chain whose signature dish is Spam sushi, Tanaka uses his fortune to do things like raze the historic Hanohano Hotel and build a concrete monstrosity in its place. Tanaka's breakfast does have its upside. Molly gets to sit with handsome Donnie Gonsalves, owner of Donnie's Drive-Inns and Tanaka's chief rival for Mahina's fast-food dollar. But the meal is marred by two unfortunate events: Tanaka's absence and the presence of a plastic skull theatrically perched atop a fruit tray. The second causes heartburn for Molly's ex, Stephen Park, a theater professor whose notoriously disorderly prop room is eyed as the source of the prank skull. Molly's colleagues Pat Flanagan and Emma Nakamura repair with her to her office-which does, after all, boast a coffee maker-to mull Tanaka's disappearance. But when the police discover that the prank skull isn't a plastic prop after all, the Student Retention Office's rules for consumer-friendly faculty behavior are suddenly the least of Molly's worries. Molly's debut is a smart and welcome addition to the teaching-college-is-murder genre.

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July 1, 2015

Molly Barda is a faculty member at Mahina State University, teaching at the College of Commerce in Hawaii. All she wants to do is lay low and work until she is granted tenure. Fast-food guru Jimmy Tanaka makes a donation to the college but fails to show up for the ceremony. Nobody can find him. Old secrets, long-standing grudges, and murder are on the menu. This humorous debut makes entertaining use of the local patois. Anyone who has ever labored on a college campus will recognize the place and its resident academic egos. VERDICT Certain to appeal to readers who love well-drawn settings or academic cozies such as Sarah Shaber's "Simon Shaw" series or Clea Simon's "Dulcie Schwartz" books.

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