Cozy Mystery Review & Author Interview: Waters of Destruction

Big thanks to the author and to Great Escapes Virtual Book Tours for the chance to review this Hawaiian mystery, and extra thanks to the author for a great interview. I reviewed the first in the series a year ago.

Waters of Destruction (An Orchid Isle Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
2nd in Series
Setting – Hawaii
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Severn House; Main edition (April 1, 2025)
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1448312183
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1448312184
Digital ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0DKXTRTX5

Retired caterer Valerie Corbin investigates a suspicious drowning in this Orchid Isle cozy culinary mystery, featuring a feisty queer couple who swap surfing lessons for sleuthing sessions in tropical Hilo, Hawai‘i

After a vacation of a lifetime in Hilo, Hawai‘i, retired caterer Valerie Corbin and her wife Kristen have decided to move permanently to the beautiful – if storm-prone – Big Island. The couple are having fun furnishing their new house, exploring their new neighborhood and playing with their new little dog, Pua. But while they’ve made good friends with local restaurant manager Sachiko and her partner Isaac, they can’t help but feel a little lonely.

So when Sachiko begs Val to fill in for a member of her bar team who’s gone AWOL, Val dusts off her cocktail shaker and happily agrees. It’s a great chance to meet more people – and learn the local gossip.

Such as about Hank, the missing bartender, who vanished after a team-building retreat at a local beauty spot a week ago, and hasn’t been seen since. Until, that is, his body turns up at the bottom of the waterfall, and the police seem very interested in where Sachiko was at the time of his death.

Sachiko couldn’t have killed him . . . could she? Val dives into the murky waters of the case, determined to find out.

This mouth-watering cozy mystery is perfect for fans of Ellen Byron, Jennifer J Chow, Lucy Burdette and Raquel V Reyes, and includes a selection of delicious Hawaiian recipes to cook at home.

My Review:

This cozy mystery strikes just the right balance of character development, intriguing suspects, good food, and Hawai'ian landscapes and culture. I like the main character, Valerie, with her multiple skills and talents, and while she might not always have been very subtle about her questioning of suspects, she does in the end use some common sense with regard to putting herself in danger. Further, she's good at catching hints from people's words and actions--which is another way of saying I admire Leslie Karst's ability to create characters and situations that are not quite what they seem.

The mystery resolved without me having positively fingered the perp, and there was at least one plausible red herring I wasn't willing to dismiss. The writing is good, and the author's use of Pidgin is pretty well balanced. She includes a glossary at the end of the book for those who weren't sure of the meaning of some of what was said (I might have made use of that if I'd noticed it was there before finishing the book!). Recipes for food and drinks that play a role in the story are included--Valerie mixes some interesting libations!

My Recommendation:

A great vacation read--quality cozy mystery fare in a cool setting. Valerie and her wife Kristen are characters worth following.

And now, an interview with author Leslie Karst:

When did you start writing? Did you always know you wanted to be a writer, or did you stumble into it later in life?

I’ve been writing extensively for years—first, with term papers in high school, later drafting literary criticism as an English major in college. But it wasn’t until after receiving my undergraduate degree, when I started a New Wave rock band and began penning songs for the group, that writing became a true vocation for me. Each song was a little story—one of heartbreak or mystery or undying love—so much more fun than cranking out dry essays about the use of figurative language in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales! It took over twenty more years (during which, as an attorney, I found myself writing dry, legal briefs), but I was eventually able to go back to stories and pursue my dream of writing fiction, and began work on what would become Dying for a Taste, the first novel in my Sally Solari culinary mystery series. After that, I was hooked on writing mysteries!

Oh, boy, I hear you about spending years writing dry un-fun stuff! So tell me, what are your books about, and who is the audience?

Molten Death is the first book in the Orchid Isle mystery series, which opens with Valerie Corbin and her wife Kristen coming to the Big Island of Hawai‘i to treat themselves to a well-earned tropical vacation. After the recent loss of her brother in a fiery car crash, Valerie is in sore need of a distraction from her troubles and is looking forward to relaxing and enjoying the delicious food and vibrant culture the state has to offer. But alas, this is not to be, for during one of their first days on-island, Valerie is the sole witness to a boot being covered over by hot, flowing lava. Only, she quickly realizes to her horror, it’s not simply a boot she’s seeing—it’s boot still attached to a human leg.

In the brand new book, Waters of Destruction, Valerie and Kristen have now moved to the Big Island and have bought a house in the charming town of Hilo. As a way to make new friends, Valerie agrees to take a job as bartender at the Speckled Gecko, taking the place of an employee who’s been AWOL for a week. But when his body ends up being pulled from the dangerous Wailuku River (which means “waters of destruction” in Hawaiian), Valerie gets sucked into investigating yet another death.

I’d say that my audience are those interested in traditional/soft-boiled mysteries, and anyone who wants an understanding of Hawaiian culture beyond what they’ve seen on TV and in the movies. Having lived half time on the Big Island now for seventeen years, I’ve come to appreciate what a special place this is because of the mix of peoples, cultures, and flora and fauna—not to mention the active volcanoes! So in addition to crafting a compelling mystery series, one of my biggest desires has been to bring to readers a picture of what the the Big Island is truly like—not for tourists, but for those who actually reside here.

What is the best thing about being a writer?

The crime-writing community, hands down. I’ve never before in my life been so surrounded by such a supportive, generous, smart, and witty group of people as are authors of mystery novels and those who read their books. Thank you all—you are amazing!

If there’s a spider in the corner of the room, do you a) panic, b) have to drop everything until it is removed, or c) hope it’s planning to eat the more annoying bugs that get in?

I’ll let you in on a little secret: I’m terrified of spiders. But at the same time, I respect them—not in the least because they keep other annoying bugs like flies and mosquitos in check. So when along comes a spider to sit down beside her—“her” being me—I do my best not to freak out. If I’m lucky, my non-spider-fearing wife is home, and she will kindly remove the critter to the outdoors. If I’m not lucky, I remove myself from the room until either my wife returns or the spider chooses to move along of its own accord.

Do you use a detailed outline before you start writing, or... ?

I started out as a devout plotter, writing multi-page outlines before typing one word of my manuscript. But over the course of now eight published mysteries, I’ve shifted. I still do a fair amount of outlining—and I always know who did it, why, and what the inciting incident is that makes my protagonist take on the investigation—but I now allow myself to simply write, not always knowing exactly where it will take me. And I have to say, I’m sometimes surprised about where that is! Which makes the writing process that much more fun.

Is there anything else you would like your readers to know about you?

You might be interested to know that besides the Orchid Isle mysteries, I’ve also written a “snarky cozy” culinary series set in Santa Cruz, California—the Sally Solari mysteries—and I’ve also penned a memoir, Justice is Served: A Tale of Scallops, the Law, and Cooking for RBG. In this true-life Julie and Julia meets Notorious RBG mash-up, I recount how finagling my way into hosting an intimate dinner party for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sends me on a journey of culinary discovery—and, ultimately, completely changes my life.

Finally, thank you for buying and/or checking out from the library the books we authors write, for reading them, and for posting reviews! We love and appreciate our readers, and couldn’t do what we do without you!

Thank you so much for stopping by my blog to talk about your books! I look forward to the next in the series.

About Leslie Karst

Leslie Karst is the author of the Orchid Isle mysteries Waters of Destruction and Molten Death, of the Lefty Award-nominated Sally Solari mystery series, and of the IBPA Ben Franklin and IPPY award silver medal-winning memoir, Justice is Served: A Tale of Scallops, the Law, and Cooking for RBG. After years waiting tables and singing in a new wave rock band, she decided she was ready for a “real” job and ended up at Stanford Law School, then returned to school to study the culinary arts. Now retired from the law, Leslie splits her time between Hilo, Hawai‘i and Santa Cruz, California, spending her days writing, cooking, cycling, gardening, and observing cocktail hour promptly at five o’clock.

Author Links

Website http://www.lesliekarstauthor.com/

Chicks on the Case https://chicksonthecase.com/

Mystery Lovers Kitchen https://www.mysteryloverskitchen.com/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/lesliekarstauthor/

BookBub https://www.bookbub.com/authors/leslie-karst

GoodReads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14220589.Leslie_Karst

Purchase Links – Amazon – B&N

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