Ukulele Murder: A Nani Johnson Mystery

Aloha Lagoon Mysteries, Volume 1

By: Leslie Langtry

Narrated by: Susan Marlowe

Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's Summary

From USA Today best-selling author Leslie Langtry comes the killer start to a brand-new multiauthor series....

Nani Johnson thought she had it made when she moved from Kansas to the resort town of Aloha Lagoon, Kauai. In spite of her certifiably crazy mom, Nani is determined that nothing will stop her from becoming a ukulele virtuoso! Unfortunately her Julliard training doesn't help her break into the local music scene due to some heavy competition from the Terrible Trio - three hostile local musicians. The only work she finds is a few bar mitzvahs and gigs at the kitschy Blue Hawaii Wedding Chapel.   

But when one of Nani's competitors drops dead right after a public feud, Nani becomes the police's main suspect. A missing murder weapon, mysterious threats, and a heck of a frame-up job all have Nani worrying she'll be trading in her flowery muumuus for prison orange. Enter hunky local botanist Nick Woodfield, who just might be able to help her clear her name...that is if he doesn't have secrets of his own. With the bodies stacking up, the danger closing in, and the authorities circling, Nani must track down a killer...before she ends up the latest victim of the Ukulele Murderer!  

The Aloha Lagoon Mysteries:
Ukulele Murder (book #1)
Murder on the Aloha Express (book #2)
Deadly Wipeout (book #3)
Photo Finished (book #4)
Deadly Bubbles in the Wine (book #5)
Mele Kalikimaka Murder (book #6)
Death of the Big Kahuna (book #7)

About Aloha Lagoon:

There's trouble in paradise....

Welcome to Aloha Lagoon, one of Hawaii's hidden treasures. A little bit of tropical paradise nestled along the coast of Kauai, this resort town boasts luxurious accommodations, friendly island atmosphere...and only a slightly higher than normal murder rate. While mysterious circumstances may be the norm on our corner of the island, we're certain that our staff and Lagoon natives will make your stay in Aloha Lagoon one you will never forget!

©2016 Leslie Langtry (P)2018 Leslie Langtry

Be transported to the Garden Island

Lets mix up some mystery and fun and music and a beautiful island and you have a tasty meal for your ears
with a good performance by the Narrator.




This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review

Take a Trip to Hawaii

In <strong>Ukulele Murder</strong> by Leslie Langtry, Nani Johnson has moved to Aloha Lagoon, Kauai from Kansas to play her ukelele, which she studied at Juilliard. After playing for a bar mitzvah, Nani goes to a concert of the top ukulele musician on the island, Alohalani, where she runs into the two other native ukelele musicians, Kua and Leilani, both of whom are antagonistic towards Nani for not being native Hawaiian and, if truth be told, for being a better musician than they are. After an argument with Kua, Nani goes to sit in front and then leaves as soon as the concert is over.

But not long after arriving at home, Nani gets visited by a police officer. Detective Ray informs her that Kua has been murdered, bludgeoned over the head, and Leilani claimed that Kua left the building with Nani in a heated argument. Unable to provide an alibi, Nani gets nervous, but Detective Ray doesn't arrest her. . . yet. The next day the officer returns with news that Kua was bludgeoned with kwila wood, a very hard native tree, a type of wood that Nani had a special ukelele made from. What is worse, that ukelele has gone missing. Now Nani is a genuine suspect.

With the help of her best friend, Binny, and the blind date her mom set her up with, Nick Woodfield, Nani has to stand up for herself in investigating things before she gets arrested. Or killed. Things becomes even scarier when more people get murdered, each in a different manner. And each murder is enacted to frame Nani.

I earlier enjoyed listening to Langtry's first four Merry Wrath books, so I was excited to see that <em>Ukelele Murder</strong> has recently been released on audio. I was most definitely not disappointed. The plot kept me drawn into the story, with its creative side trips and clever details. The path that Nani travels in her search for the truth takes us through some interesting plot points.

However, as much as I enjoyed the plot, it is the characters who truly bring this book to life. Nani was a believable, likable character with whom we can completely identify and really want to see succeed in her life and in her ability to find the real murderer in order to stay out of prison. Binny serves as the perfect best friend, and we come to like Nick, though we understand Binny's concern over Nick's over- eagerness and find ourselves wondering about his motives. But the most lively character is Nani's alcoholic, borderline mental case of a mother. The woman lives to her own drum and decorates the living room with random objects found on the island, so Nani never knows whether she'll walk in to find coconuts or hula girls filling her living room. But further, the island life itself serves as another character in the story. We see views of the island and images of life there, from the music to the surfing and everything in between.

Susan Marlowe performs the audio edition of this book, with a strong alto voice that adds to the sense of music behind the book. She uses good voices for the various characters, both the women and men characters. The expression she uses adds to the humor that the book already contains. Marlowe effectively helps the book take us to Kauai and enjoy the experience oft1 listening to the ukelele. Pp

I really enjoyed listening to <strong>Ukulele Murder</strong>. The story was full of fun, but the characters took it to a higher level of delight. The book gave me a strong picture of Kauai and made me interested in the ukulele as an instrument. I give it five stars!

Pretty dumb but a bit of interesting characters

The characters were the most interesting thing about the story, but from the beginning it was too easy to identify the evil person and then so much was repeated over and over and over- oh, the angst! Wait a minute, actually, the very most interesting part of the drama was about the ukuleles. That was good.

Fun listen

I found this audiobook to be a fun listen. It has a great combination of murder, mystery, suspense and humor. The narrator does a wonderful job of reading each character.

Fun with too many glottal stops

I’m a ukulele player so this was fun though I guessed the killer halfway through.
The narrator’s glottal stops though drove me nuts: bo’ul for bottle,for example. The lack of ts and ds mid word rampaged through the book.in what might otherwise have been a fine narration.

Murder in Paradise

This book brought back all the wonderful memories of Hawaii. Island fever is real and the just another day in paradise is a common reaction to the beauty is the day. A fun who done it with lots of laughs. Start of a fun series

Great mystery

Great mystery and I love this series. Each is a great standalone

I received a free copy and left my honest review

A fun listen in a murder mystery

This was an enjoyable listen! I like quick fun mysteries, nothing so serious it gets depressing.
This is that kind of book. The characters are fun, and following their 'we don't need the police, we'll solve this ourselves' logic is an enjoyable ride. You have to be able to suspend some belief in some logic, as the characters here, as they do in many of these types of books, have a 'sure, someone's trying to kill me, but I'll withhold information from the police and try to solve it myself' theme going, but overall a fun listen, and enjoyable characters.

A delightful cosy mystery

Finally, I’ve gotten back into my audiobook groove again, and as my first book back, I chose Ukulele Murder by Leslie Langtry; which marks my first cosy mystery from this author … I was not disappointed.

Set in the fictional township of Aloha Lagoon, Hawaii, Ukulele Murder provided a wonderful, tropical escape from the rapidly declining temperatures. The way that the author described the beauty and sense of community of the Hawaiian Islands sounded perfectly ideal. As a listener/reader, I could imagine what the area looked like as I read.

Furthermore, what helped enhance the community, was the cast of characters who all came across as believable and realistic. It was easy to relate to the characters and feel various emotions regarding them as the story progressed (ie. my frustration with Nani's mum).

In terms of the actual mystery, I was easily able to guess the outcome. However, despite this, I found myself binge-listening to this story; enjoying the twists and turns on the way to the resolution.

Finally, in regards to narration, I believe that Susan Marlowe did a splendid job telling the story. Although, I did notice that she pronounced words that included a 't' a bit oddly which I found slightly jarring - but that is only a minor nitpick really.

Overall, Ukulele Murder was a delightful cosy mystery to get me back into the swing of things. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book to other fans of the genre. My only regret is that the rest of the series isn't on Audible yet.

Please note that this book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review

Clean up your poor speech habits!

The "full glottal stop" in the middle of words with Ts etc. in them (writ' ten) is a sloppy, poor speaking habit and this narrator should have broken herself of it before anyone considered hiring her to narrate. She's not as bad as others I've heard but it's still unacceptable.

Good

I was given this free review copy at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
Good

A light-hearted cosy mystery.

This is a very easy book to listen to . The narration was good and the story light and free flowing. There was very little mystery as it was obvious who the killer was and the red herrings were transparent. The characterisation was mostly shallow and Nick came across as a bit creepy at times. I found the angst about him from Nani a bit too much though.
However despite this it held my attention and had me wanting to find out if I was right, and to get to the end of the book (in a good way). It was actually a very pleasant way to while away a few hours. 3.5 stars overall.

Brilliant first book in the Aloha Lagoon Mystery

Brilliant first book in this series new author for me a page turner although I am an audible listener can't wait to listen to the rest of the series, fantastic

Lots of fun! :))))

This was a fun cozy mystery! I had no idea who the culprit was until the very end. Likable characters, lots of humor. The narrator did a fab job with the different voices. Pulled me right into the story.

A bit hum drum

The story was ok, not brilliant. I guessed who the murderer was. Narrator was good.

Music to your ears

This was a fun easy listen. I did get a bit confused with all the Island names and keeping every one straight in my head but I did enjoy it. I liked the colourful island life and thought the author did a good job of describing it, so you could picture the scenes. The plot was interesting and had a number of suspects for you to consider, even some that had nothing to do with the case seemed suspicious to me.
There are only four Ukulele players that are any good on the island of Hawaii and when someone starts to kill them off one by one, the police look at the person that agains the most from there deaths, Nani. The outsider that the islanders don't trust, the ukulele player that can only get the jobs that the others don't want like playing at weddings in a an Elvis chapel. Nani knows she didn't kill them but when one of the murder weapons turns out to be made from the wood she had her custom made ukulele from out of, things don't look good. With the police looking hard at her she turns to her friends for help but can she really trust them in her hour of need or will they be like her mum? More of a spanner in the works?She means well but somehow always says the wrong thing at the wrong time. And with friends and family like that is she better off in jail were a killer can't get to her.
I liked the narrator and thought she did a good job with the different voices and speaking Hawaiian.

murder mystery

enjoyed this audio book very much great team author Leslie Langtry
Narrated by: Susan Marlowe can't wait for more books

You really are Nancy Drew.

Set in the beautiful surroundings of Kouai, Hawaii, this cozy murder mystery has some delightful comedic moments but was mostly rather irritating or, even worse, dull. The story is written in the first person by an ukulele player from Kansas, named Nani. After her father's death a year before, she and her mother moved to Aloha Lagoon where she tried to establish her musical career. Unfortunately for her, there were three established and lauded players there already, so work was sparce and the three held her in distain because of her lack of Hawaiian crudentials
When one of the esteemed ukulele players is murdered, Nani becomes a suspect. When the police investigation seems to stall, Nani, brand new boyfriend Nick and best friend Bernie set out to solve the crime for themselves in order to protect her from imprisonment.

Characterisation is slim apart from that of the main protagonist who comes over as silly, callous and generally unattractive. The mystery is also shallow, the who-dun-it? being obvious and the attempts to disguise the killer stretched and ridiculous. But there are some delightful episodes, most especially those revolving around Pastor Dan Presley, who runs the Blue Hawaii Wedding chapel. Pity there wasn't more set here rather than inside Nani Johnson's head. Fortunately, the book is well read by Susan Marlowe who, with a pleasant timbre to her voice and involvement with any emotional changes in the text, gives a good performance as Nani. She also voices the other characters seperately and so carried the story to it's end for this reader, something the text alone could not have done.

My thanks to the rights holder for freely gifting me a complimentary copy of Ukulele Murder, at my request, via Audiobook Boom. As a background listen cozy, with some hilarious highlights, this book is quite fun but not for anyone looking for a satisfying mystery to solve. I