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Searching... McMinnville Public Library | Flora, K. | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
"Death in Paradise Thea Kozak is a tough, energetic business-woman. She is someone who is carving a lucrative career for herself as an educational consultant while juggling all the stresses of modern life - and maintaining a sometimes long-distance relationship with Andre, the devilishly handsome Maine state trooper she met while trying to solve her sister's murder. It's a '90s kind of lifestyle and it would be perfect ... except that murders seem to pop up around her like bad debts." "While on a holiday to attend an educational seminar in Hawaii, Thea is determined not only to make the conference a success but to soak up some sun and get in some serious down time. What she hasn't bargained for is a dead body, none other than the conference chairwoman, strangled and done up like an expensive call girl." "As Thea tries to keep the conference from disintegrating into chaos, she discovers more motives for the woman's death than positive attributes about her life, and more suspects than she can handle."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Education consultant and amateur detective Thea Kozak (An Educated Death, 1997), returns in a yawner set in Hawaii. Kozak, attending an educational conference in Maui, far from her home state of Maine and the embraces of her hunky boyfriend, Detective Andre Lemieux, finds herself reluctantly embroiled in a murder investigation. Conference director Martina Pullman is found dead in her hotel room, dressed in sexy lingerie and strangled with a stocking. Pullman, naturally, had made an enemy of every board member at the conference, not to mention the first wife of her husband, Jeff. When Pullman's assistant Rory Altschuler attempts suicide and when she herself is almost drowned on a scuba expedition, Kozak begins to suspect even those whom she longs to trust. Flora's verbosity fails to flesh out the characters, most of whom are stereotypical and shallow. Beautiful Maui features hardly at all as a backdrop. The one bright spot is 11-year-old Laura Mitchell, Kozak's self-appointed Watson, whose nose for detective work puts her in the path of danger as the murderers use her to get to Kozak. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Welcome to the National Association of Girls' Schools conference in beautiful Maui, where the hatred of NAGS founder Martina Pullman, even among her own governing board, is so intense that it's a wonder her corpse isn't discovered until the end of Chapter One. Since assistant Rory Altschuler's idea of grabbing the reins is to flee screaming from the scene and hide under her bed, it's up to NAGS consultant Thea Kozak (An Educated Death, 1997, etc.), who has the strength of ten, to take charge. By the time Thea goes to bed that night, she's already established motives for plenty of folks who weren't even intent on ousting Martina from her board (from Martina's would-be lover Lewis Broder to her ghostwriter Drusilla Aird to her lobbyist husband's first wife Linda Janovich), given the speech she'd originally written for Martina, and corrected the dinner count for the hotel staff. She's also enjoyed the first few rounds of perhaps overconvenient gossip from diverse mouths, including that of a beguiling little girl, and attempted to reassure Det. Andre Lemieux, her lover back in Boston, that she's fineleaving the next day free for more nasty secrets, more flying fur, and of course the obligatory attempt on Thea's own life. (In five adventures so far, Thea's absorbed more punishment than any half-dozen Dick Francis heroes.) Fans of Thea's battle-hardened style know they can count on the knives coming out early and often. Only the identification of the muffled killer is a letdown.
Booklist Review
Thea Kozak would rather be in New England with her lover, Detective Andre Lemieux. Instead, she is in Hawaii, managing a conference for an association of girls' schools and dealing with flamingly incompetent coworkers and a shrew of an executive director named Martina Pullman. Then Martina is murdered, and Thea must try to find the killer before others are hurt. This fifth Thea Kozak mystery is a trifle long but smoothly written, solidly plotted, and populated with strong characters. Flora makes good use of her Hawaiian setting but never succumbs to the temptation of padding the story with travelogue asides. Flora has great respect for the lives of police detectives, which gives her series a gritty realism that blends nicely with the somewhat cozy story lines. Thea Kozak is a winning character whose adventures somehow suggest a Dilbert comic strip for keeps. --John Rowen
Library Journal Review
Educational consultant Thea Kozak, series sleuth, hopes to get some rest while attending a conference in Hawaii. When someone murders the chairwoman, however, Thea finds herself once again questioning suspects. An exciting series addition. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.