Honolulu Play-Off

Alan Saxon #6

by Keith Miles

Alan Saxon flies to Honololu to act as best man at the wedding of a close friend, Donald Dukelow, an American golfer who has always beaten Saxon in play-offs. In the party are the groom's mother, who hates the idea of her son marrying a Hawaiian beauty so much younger than him, and Dukelow's first wife, Heidi, a keen golfer and admirer of Saxon. Troubles start when Saxon and Heidi play a round on the Ko Olina course. Things get rapidly worse that evening when Saxon and Dukelow have a meal together. They go into a nightclub with disastrous results. Though Saxon manages to carry his friend back to the hotel, he finds him brutally murdered in his bed the next morning. Since Dukelow has joked that he wanted Saxon there as a bodyguard, the latter feels guilty―especially when he realizes how easily he was duped. To solve the crime and avenge his friend, Saxon has to investigate the Kaheiki family into which Dukelow was about to marry. When he lifts the stones, he does not like what he finds underneath them and he is soon in jeopardy himself. In addition to calming Heidi, consoling Dukelow's mother, keeping the police off his back, following his own lines of inquiry and dealing with the violent Nick Kaheiki―he has to keep one step ahead of two people who seem intent on killing him. Indeed, it's almost as if they're involved in a play-off to see who can murder him first. Unaware of who either of his assassins might be, Saxon weaves, dodges and tries every trick he knows to stay alive. Hawaii is no dream holiday for him. Honolulu Play-Off is a racy golf mystery with an intriguing Hawaiian cocktail of murder, suspense, deception and family conflict. It's the sixth novel in the Alan Saxon series.

272 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2004

About the author

Pseudonyms: Edward Marston, A.E. Marston, Martin Inigo, Conrad Allen, David Garland, Christopher T. Mountjoy

Keith Miles (born 1940) is an English author, who writes under his own name and also historical fiction and mystery novels under the pseudonym Edward Marston. He is known for his mysteries set in the world of Elizabethan theater. He has also written a series of novels based on events in the Domesday Book.

The protagonist of the theater series is Nicholas Bracewell, the bookholder of a leading Elizabethan theater company (in an alternate non-Shakespearean universe).

The latter series' two protagonists are the Norman soldier Ralph Delchard and the former novitiate turned lawyer Gervase Bret, who is half Norman and half Saxon.

His latest series of novels are based in early Victorian period and revolve around the fictional railway detective Inspector Robert Colbeck.

Series:
* City Hospital
* Action Scene
* Alan Saxon
* Merlin Richards

Reviews

[Jersey Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

By now Saxon's many insecurities have become tedious to read over and over. And, with no real chance for the reader to solve this ridiculously convoluted 'mystery,' it's no mystery why this is the last one in an ever decreasingly interesting series.

[Debra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Keith Miles also writes historical mysteries as Edward Marston. I enjoyed those - let's see if I enjoy a golf themed book by him.