Ukulele Murder: A Nani Johnson Mystery

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

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

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!

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

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.

Entertaining read

My first very enjoyable read from author Leslie Langtry was a well-written cozyish mystery. I was given an Audible copy of this book and am voluntarily reviewing it. I look forward to more from this author.

A Humorous Cozy Mystery

The story itself was awesome! It written well, and I enjoyed all the humor. The plot was very original and kept me guessing until the end. Personally, I did not care for the narrator's voice and thought the book would have been even better with a different narrator. However, I would still recommend this audio book to others, as the story was very, very good.

Murder by Ukulele

When a string of ukulele virtuosos are murdered in Hawaii, it appears that the howlie new girl is the culprit. She and her friends are forced to out-sleuth the local police to prove she's innocent and to uncover the real murderer.
This one's got a little romance, a lot of action, a zany Mom and a smart and spunky heroine and a thoroughly entertaining supporting cast.
If you can't make it to Hawaii this year, this story might help you escape to the land of sun and sea, at least for a few hours.

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

Entertaining cozy mystery set in Hawaii

Nani Johnson moved from the Kansas plains to Hawaii with her mother after her father’s death. After a year living there, she’s still struggling with becoming a well-known ukulele player due to the fact that she is not a real Hawaiian, and plays second fiddle to three important ukulele players on the island. Almost wishing those three musicians to be dead, because they are not nice to her and she seems to be not good enough for them, Nani sees her ‘wishes’ become true when one of the players appears dead one evening. The big problem here though is that Nani is a person of interest in the murder investigation.

I’m a sucker for cozy mysteries, and having the perspective of listening to one set in Hawaii and with the word ukulele in the title was just too much for me to resist. I have to say that as cozy mysteries go, this one kept me really interested from the start, and kept guessing all along who the murder could be. It’s not that I’m not interested in other occasions, but I tend to enjoy without giving it too much thought. Listening cozy mysteries is one of my ways of decompressing.

The story is well built, and I thoroughly enjoyed the setting and atmosphere. I especially liked to learn some facts about Hawaii and about one of the hardest woods in the world. The characters were, in general, likable, but there was not too much character development. The only character that didn’t convince me was Nani’s boyfriend. It seems he was just an artifact to assist in telling the story. He voiced some of Nani’s thoughts but he did little else, apart from tagging along with Nani and her friend.

Susan Marlowe’s narration was fantastic. Adding value to the book and not disturbing the story. She kept a good pace and delivered great character interpretations, while also using different voices for them. Following dialogs was a breeze, and she kept my attention at all times.

It was good cozy mystery and it fulfilled its mission: providing me with some good hours of stress-free entertainment. I’d recommend it to anyone into cozy mysteries.

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

FUN MURDER MYSTERY! UKULELES CAN BE DEADLY!

What a fun and delightful cozy listen! I now know way more about ukuleles than I ever thought possible LOL, but I loved it!!
Great characters, great fun, and believe it or not lots of ukulele action.

After moving to Hawaii, Nani is ready to crash the craqzy ukulele scene! Before she knows it, she's sucked into a mystery involving the murder of a competitor. The police can't possibly think SHE had anything to do with it?!? The clues are what they are, and are all pointing to Nani. The murders continue, and and the suspense is so thick you can cut it with a knife. Can she clear her name in time? Will she be a victim herself?

Lots of fun characters, well written and beautifully narrated. Enjoyed it from start to finish! I'm glad there are more in the series, and I'd love to see them all available on Audible! :)

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
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Loved it start to finish!

I loved everything about this book. The plot, characters, and the narration all came together and the end result is a fun mystery that has me excited for the next in the series.
Nani is one of just a handful of ukulele players on the island and when they start getting killed one by one it looks like she is the prime suspect. When it looks like the local police aren't doing much investigating, Nani takes matters into her own hands and starts looking into the murders.
I think the star in the book is Nani's mother. She reminds me much of Grandma Mazur in the Stephanie Plum series.

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

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