Black Jasmine

Have really enjoyed the first two books in this series and the three books I read from another series. I have enjoyed the story lines and characters and also that they are fairly clean which is hard to find in a lot of stories anymore. Then I read this book and the author starts throwing in more swearing especially the disgusting “f” bomb and the sex scenes are becoming more explicit. Uncalled for. Your other books were just fine without it. Not sure I will read anymore if this is how they are going to be.

Black Jasmine is a cop story & murder mystery with several misdirections.It is listed as "Book 3", but this is one of a series of separate, stand-alone stories. There are some references to things that happened in books 1 or 2, but as it is only slight background here, you lose nothing if you start with this book, as I did. However, it has some shortcomings, too, that definitely bring down the rating.The series is set in the Hawaiian Islands, which at least for me, is not used often as a setting. Lei Texeira is a cop who had a very bad childhood upbringing, and she is definitely NOT past all her issues, unlike many cop stories with a "broken" main character. This fact makes her both more interesting and more annoying as a character. There are times you just want to slap her and say "get over it already!". Her character development is really pretty good, considering a lot of exposition was probably done in the first two books. The author seems to bring up just enough to flesh out the character without (I hope) repeating too much from past stories. Lei is a rough and tough cop, living the job because the rest of her life scares her to death.This story starts with a simple investigation into a likely suicide of a teenage girl. It blossoms from there, and by the end of the story she has dealt with murder, human trafficking, drugs, money laundering, dirty cops, and even having a contract put out on her life. There is a lot going on in this book, and it keeps moving. Having it set in the islands also brings in real and imagined race questions of equal treatment, and a bit on how the Hawaiians actually may feel about being pulled into the United States.Structurally the book is well done; very few spelling errors, homonyms, tense agreement, and apostrophe trouble. That helps keep the pace moving. However, there are some issues, some small, some not so small, that do take away from the book.There is a fairly large amount of sex in it, most of it unneeded to move the story along. While it is nowhere near the steamy scenes one finds in every JD Robb "....In Death" murder mystery, it is more than a simple hint that something happened. Of course, it shows Lei's passion in all areas of her life, but it could be dialed back a bit, especially in quantity. Next, in the several attacks on her from a hit-man, her injuries do not match the severity of the attacks. Next, though this is an investigative mystery, there is nearly no investigating that goes on. Almost every plot point that moves the story along is announced by someone as having been discovered by someone else "offstage", so to speak. Not much actually comes about visibly within the story structure. It is a mystery that largely solves itself. The book also focuses on Lei, almost to the exclusion of all else, including the actual crime story. There is a lot of angst about her upbringing and how it interferes with her relationships, but she doesn't anything about it. Her personal demons seem to be the focus of the book more than the mystery. It also leaves out almost everything about all the other police characters, to the point where they are almost cardboard cutouts.Finally, and this is probably a pet peeve of mine alone, Lei's name really annoys me. I hate it when authors give their main character a "cutesy" name or one that is a play on words. It's like the names of the "Bond girls" in the James Bond movies, where they are really stupid. What am I talking about? Leilani Rosario Texeira, or as she is known most in the book, Lei Texeira. Get it? "Lei-Tex" (Latex, from the rubber tree). Sorry, just had to vent a little.Overall, while the storylines were numerous and tended to get solved "off-screen" in the main, the pace was good and the concept interesting. Taking into account my issues as mentioned above, I still give this book 4 stars. I could see myself reading more of this in either direction, since this story is somewhat in the middle of the series.

Toby Neal is back with another action packed Hawaiian mystery adventure featuring the sexy detective Lei Texeira and her burly partner Pono Kaihale.The book opens with Lei rappelling down a steep Oceanside cliff to get to the (crime?) scene of an automobile fall. She finds a young dead (teenage?) female still seat belted in the driver’s seat of the smashed up vehicle. Lei is eager to solve this (suicide?) mystery, so as soon as the body is taken away by the Medical Examiner, Dr. Gregory, she heads to the campground located by the Pauwela Lighthouse with her partner.At the Pauwela Lighthouse camping grounds most of the campers tell them the same story of hearing a loud crash during the night. One resident of the campground, Ramona Haulani reported that she heard the car drive up to the cliff edge late at night so she went out of her tent to have a look. Ramona indicates that the car sat by the edge for a while then it just slowly rolled off the cliff. “It was loud” Ramona relates; she then tells of seeing a small flashlight making its way to the main road from where the car went over the cliff. Of course it was very dark with hardly any moon out, so Ramona did not see who was holding the flashlight. Lei and Pono tell Ramona to keep what she knows under wraps and to not tell anyone else what she shared with them.Lei does not get along with her commanding officer, Lieutenant Omura, who is a petite Japanese woman with an imposing presence, a very high IQ, a black belt in Judo, and a master’s degree in criminology. Lei’s nickname for the Lieutenant is the “Steel Butterfly,” so Pono usually takes the lead in debriefings concerning their cases. As the Maui Police Department (MPD) gets closer to solving the two linked cases Lei and her partner are working, Omura shows aggressive detective skills that greatly impress and win Lei over to her leadership methods.Someone is trying to kill Lei. During a routine morning running session with her beautiful Rottweiler Keiki, Lei is purposely run down by a vehicle. The next attempt on Lei’s life is her house being set ablaze and a sniper waiting outside to shoot anyone exiting through the windows in the back of the house. The last attempt involves someone driving a large black Cadillac Escalade into the back of Lei’s Tacoma and pushing her off the road down fifty yards into a precipice. Lei’s brushes with death are all connected with the two cases Lei and her partner Pono are investigating. The first case involves the homicide of the red-haired teenaged girl inside the car that went off the cliff by the Pauwela Lighthouse, and the other case deals with a ring of illegal cock fighting controlled by an organized crime lord with the name of House.When Lei’s FBI friend Marcella Scott shows up, the investigation into the red-headed Jane Doe homicide case is handed over to the FBI because it points to the crime of human trafficking which is a federal crime. Marcella wants and has been encouraging Lei to join the FBI and awaits Lei’s decision till the case is solved.Lei’s relationship with her fiancé Michael Stevens is scary for her. He wants to marry Lei and start a family, but the thought of that scares her to no end, and makes her heart beat fast in panic mode. As a young girl Lei never got over being molested by one Charlie Kwon who also molested a string of other young girls. Although Charlie did time in the Lompoc Federal Correctional Facility for this crime, he is out early on parole due to over-crowding. Lei cannot resist the urge to go and pay this monster a visit, but the encounter is not at all as she envisioned it.Readers of the Mystery/Thriller & Suspense/Romance/Police Procedurals, and Women Sleuths genera’s will adore diving between the pages of this exciting adventure.

It would appear that there are many echoes from Lei's past in this story; from people who she has upset in a previous investigation, to the man who abused her as a child. As I haven't read any of the previous books I don't know how that played out, but it is obvious that her childhood abuse has had a massive impact on Lei's ability to forge a committed relationship with the man she loves. In this book however, she does manage to confront and defeat that particular demon.Despite my concerns about the nature of her relationship I did enjoy the unwinding of the story as it is laid out for us. Lei does seem to have an incredible amount of luck to survive the attempts on her life, and for a cop, she is either utterly stupid or equally incredibly arrogant. When someone is trying to kill you, you keep your head down and if sent to a safe house, you stay there!!!! One outstanding feature of this book is the general normality of police work - the team work, allocating tasks to different officers rather than the same ones hogging all the credit, and the investigation of multiple cases concurrently.I didn't work out the identity of the person behind it all even though I really should have - we did have the descriptions after all, but I was too busy getting distracted by Lei's meltdowns over her childhood traumas - a very clever technique employed by the author. Towards the end of the book, we are given the identity of the mole in the police department but that information is never followed up and dealt with which is a jarring ommission. I particularly liked that the two people who were at the root of the network of evil were ultimately very disappointed with each other, although their eventual outcome was rather ludicrous.This book has however been good company through a sleepless night and I was able to get sufficiently caught up in it not to resent the lack of sleep and would have given it four stars but for the inconsistencies and totally unsatisfactory ending.

This is the first book I have read by this author and at times I did feel I was missingsomething about Lei's traumatic past. However, it didn't spoil the story.It made a refreshing change that the characters didn't use foul language all the timeas so many authors seem to think is necessary - in my opinion it isn't!Also it was good that there were several investigations going on at the same time,even if eventually they tied up. I liked Lei as a character - again a change from hard drinking,smoking, macho male cops.As another reviewer said, the ending of the 2 prime "baddies" was rather silly - and I wouldhave liked the bad cop to have been properly dealt with. Apart from those points, I wouldrecommend this book for an easy read and I will read more of the author's books.

I,ve read the previous 2 books and thoroughly enjoyed them. Unfortunately in this one Lei comes across as an arrogant, self centered brat. Yes she's got her demons ( haven't we all?), but to treat her poor boyfriend so callously put me off her. Apart from that it was another well written mystery.

Hard to put down. The story was relatively easy to understand but not too easy to realise who was masterminding events. I like the way the fake Magda was brought in with her own storyline too. What would be good is a glossary of how to pronounce the Hawaiian islands. Not sure if that has been covered in previous books?

As delighted to read and enjoy Black Jasmine and now eager to treat myself to another dose of high adventure from Toby Neal.I recommend Black Jasmine to anyone who enjoys a well thought out, convoluted plot, replete with many surprises and excitements.

All the books in this series are superb - at the moment I am reading the seventh in the series. A little bit of everything, and lots of descriptions of Hawaii, some of which places I am familiar with. I am really enjoying Toby Neal’s work and will be sad when I get to the last book, which I have already downloaded in readiness. Thank you, Toby.

Enough twists and turns to keep the interest, and plenty of characters to empathise with. Whilst sympathizing with her colleagues putting up with red tape

Fast action packed pace keeps you reading it to see where it leads. Interesting twists woven in to keep you guessing to the end

I thoroughly enjoyed the story which was a bit different being based in Hawaii. I then went on to read some of the others.

Recommended, a gripping read. Hard to put down. Reads as though you are actually on the islands watching rather than reading.

Builds up nicely with a different end to the norm. Sure this one was a bit grittier than the previous two stories. Sun, sex, murder, slavery, action and the will she or not scenario. Good mix which kept me interested. Nearly forgot - and a dog.

Good

Good read

Thoroughly enjoyed this one, which I downloaded when it was free on a special offer day. This is a good story, with many sub-plots and sufficient interest to make you want to keep reading. I recommend it to anyone.

A police investigation of a murder and much more that kept me interested right through and the characters were believable.