He doesn’t speak French. He’s never been to Paris. Kai Cooke is an unlikely detective to investigate the hanging death there of a study abroad student from Hawai‘i named Ryan Song. Except that Ryan was a surfer. With this thin connection to the case, Kai tries to piece together what happened in Paris, without ever leaving the islands. This means a challenging case. How will the Surfing Detective reconstruct a sequence of events that occurred months earlier and seven thousand miles away?
Kai, as always, rises to the occasion. And, as always, things turn out to be not as they seem. As he interviews a half dozen students and their professor who accompanied Ryan to Paris, Kai discovers that while their stories tally, none sounds like the truth. To get the to truth, he must dig deeper. What went down in Paris ends up astonishing even the detective himself.
HANGING TEN IN PARIS marks the first time a Surfing Detective mystery has appeared in the form of a novelette, whose length is midway between the short story and novella. The advantages of this form are three: it invites us to see Kai working a case in more depth than we could in a short story; it has the focus and brevity that allows us to read from beginning to end at one sitting; and, finally, it offers those unfamiliar with the series the opportunity to become acquainted, with little time or expense. Enjoy the ride!
Kai, as always, rises to the occasion. And, as always, things turn out to be not as they seem. As he interviews a half dozen students and their professor who accompanied Ryan to Paris, Kai discovers that while their stories tally, none sounds like the truth. To get the to truth, he must dig deeper. What went down in Paris ends up astonishing even the detective himself.
HANGING TEN IN PARIS marks the first time a Surfing Detective mystery has appeared in the form of a novelette, whose length is midway between the short story and novella. The advantages of this form are three: it invites us to see Kai working a case in more depth than we could in a short story; it has the focus and brevity that allows us to read from beginning to end at one sitting; and, finally, it offers those unfamiliar with the series the opportunity to become acquainted, with little time or expense. Enjoy the ride!
