I love books with a strong sense of place, where the setting becomes another character. When I first started thinking about writing a mystery series, I thought I'd set it in Northern California, where I've lived for the last thirty or so years. But my heart wasn't in it, and after my last vacation in Hawaii, I realized where I really wanted to set my story. It wasn't just because it's a beautiful, tropical paradise. I lived there for several years as a kid, and it was the place I felt most at home I worried at first because it'd been so long since I'd lived there I wasn't sure I could write about the different neighborhoods, and in the end I decided Maya would live in Waikiki. It's a weird place for a local girl - it's really only a place for tourists. But when we first moved to Hawaii, my family stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village for a month while we searched for a house. I used to fall asleep to the sound of ukuleles and Don Ho. The sounds a...
