The mystery of the hibiscus crown

By Samantha Payne

Hawaii, 1992. When a genetically engineered purple hibiscus worth a million dollars vanishes from a cliffside estate in Kona during a tropical blackout - and its creator turns up dead inside a locked greenhouse - retired detective inspector Dorothy Chen finds herself pulled into a case she never asked for.

Armed with nothing but sharp instincts, a well-worn notebook, and a knitting bag that has solved more cases than most people's filing cabinets, Dorothy teams up with her nephew Clayton - an ex-Navy investigator turned charter captain with a gift for reading a room and an even greater gift for finding trouble in one. Between them: a household full of secrets, a socialite drowning in gambling debt, a groundskeeper who says too little, and a personal assistant so quietly efficient that no one ever thought to watch him.

As the trail leads from a Kona cliffside to a private island in the Bahamas, the bodies start piling up faster than the answers - and a hurricane is bearing down on the one place they can't afford to be trapped. Somewhere on that island, a killer has been hiding in plain sight for eleven years.

Dorothy and Clayton have until the storm hits to find them.

A twisty, character-driven whodunit for readers who like their mysteries sharp, their detectives underestimated, and their stakes as high as the storm surge.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1764816927
• ISBN13: 9781764816922
• Release Date: August 2026
• Publisher: S .L .Payne
• Length: 380 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.0" x 8.0"