The Case of the Defunct Adjunct

So...Goodreads is still letting us review our own books? Awesome. <br /><br />The Case of the Defunct Adjunct is a prequel to The Musubi Murder. They can be read in either order, but the intent is for the reader to finish The Musubi Murder first, in order to appreciate some of the foreshadowing in Defunct Adjunct. <br /><br />You can get a pretty good idea of whether this book is for you by reading over the reviews for <a href="https://goodreads.com/book/show/22945348.The_Musubi_Murder__The_Molly_Barda_Mysteries____1_" title="The Musubi Murder (The Molly Barda Mysteries, # 1) by Frankie Bow" rel="noopener">The Musubi Murder</a>.<br /><br />Readers who liked it wrote: <br /><blockquote><br />More than a few writers have tried to place mysteries in Hawaii but few get it right. Frankie Bow has a good ear for the nuances of local-speak...She also has a very good eye for the elements of local culture and can translate adeptly these images into prose.<br /><br />The behind-the-scenes descriptions of university politics are hilarious. The depictions of the academic quicksands of funding, tenure, political maneuvering, academic (dis)honesty, and political correctness (Office of Student Retention) are spot-on.<br /><br />The College of Commerce has budget issues and is literally falling apart around them. I am reading this book just after the Governor of my fine state of Wisconsin has cut hundreds of millions of dollars out of out college system. <br /><br /> I think the series will turn out to be quite an enjoyable read for those who are always, like me, looking for a good, cozy mystery to dive right into, one that is realistic and substantive, but not too heavy to read.</blockquote><br /><br />Some readers didn't care for it as much: <br /><blockquote><br />One of my main difficulties with the novel is that the author's portrayal of university life is incredibly off-putting. The University's staff and faculty are full of stereotypes of the most negative sort and the workings of the university administration are almost foolish. <br /><br />The setting was a college campus in Hawaii and I found it somewhat unusual that the author tells us very little about the beauty of Hawaii and its unique culture. The professors seemed to be very immature and not very professor-like and the students seemed to act more like high school students. <br /><br />I bought the book because it was a mystery set in Hawaii, and while Hawaiian culture came up now and then, there was no explanation of its significance. The book is missing that rich, overriding texture of place that helps center the characters and plot. Also, what 21st-century Lit/Business Comm/Commerce professor wears panty hose, especially in Hawaii? And who has time to sit around drinking all that coffee?<br /></blockquote><br /><br />So if you're looking for a sober, nuanced portrayal of university life, or if the idea of a pantyhose-wearing professor grinds your gears, this is probably not the book for you. And to the reviewer who wrote, <br /><br /><blockquote>Listening to this book made me want to kill myself. Otoh, I finished it to find out who the murderer was.</blockquote><br /><br />Sorry about momentarily crushing your will to live, but thanks for reading to the end.<br /><br />Defunct Adjunct is on preorder special for only .99 US until its December 1 release date, so now's the time to get it. Upon release, Defunct Adjunct will be available at Apple, Kobo, and B&amp;N, as well as Amazon, for 3.99. Hardcover and paperback editions are planned as well. It won't be in Kindle Unlimited, because that's only open to authors who distribute exclusively through Amazon.

If you like your cozy mysteries with humor and a satisfying dose of sarcasm, Frankie Bow is your go-to author.<br />Put Molly Barda and best friend Emma Nakamura together and you never know what can happen next. It is the summer session at Mahina State University, where rules for faculty are more strict than for students. After all, the students pay to be there, the professor's should respect individual learning styles. The budget is tight and the weather is not all that is creating heat. Between unpaid teaching assignments and mandatory committee meetings, who has time for a social life?<br />Molly's birthday arrives but her boyfriend doesn't.<br />Emma feels this presents an opportunity and solution rolled into one.<br />When Emma's brother Jonah is fired from the university and his former office mate collapses at an awards ceremony, things are not looking good for the Nakamura family. Can Molly find out the truth?<br /><br />While the summer is dangerous and uncomfortable for Molly and Emma, I am greatly entertained by Buzzword Bingo, Molly's students and the seemingly impossible yet quite believable situations they find themselves in.<br />Since I had listened to the previous book in this series, I found myself reading in the voices of this quirky cast of characters.<br /><br />I did receive this book in exchange for my honest review.

Fun, cozy mystery. I love the local island flavor.

Cozy with an interesting plot and twists and clear narration. I don’t always know why I like this series so much, then start reading and the humor, sympathy for shared experience, and good plot pulls me in again. Nicole Gose narrated in character.

I loved this book! I was caught laughing out loud. The sarcasm and humor are superbly written. I was hooked from the start and dare say forgot all about the time while reading. <br />We all think of Hawaii as a paradise where everything is always in bloom and perfect weather with beautiful beaches. Molly, a literature Ph.D at Mahina University is teaching of all things business. Not exactly her dream job. And she is not a fan of rain and guess what, it rains a lot and with curly hair she is a frizzy mess and her clothes stick to her. Yuck! This is not exactly the paradise people think of but at least she has a job. She and her colleagues are going through a lot right now because of budget cuts, committees and working in the summer with no extra pay. Molly has been having trouble with a student getting violent in class and looks forward to a nice dinner out with her boyfriend Stephen for her birthday. Stephen stands her up and she ends up at her best friend Emma's who is also a professor of Biology at the university. Emma is one of my favorite characters because she is a hoot. She is funny, straight forward person who btw told Molly that Stephen the jerk would stand her up again.<br />Meanwhile back at the university Molly and Iker, professor of accounting have been working on budgets and possibly inappropriation of funds in the music department. This is where Molly's life goes from bad to worse. Kent Lovely is the professor who oversees the budget for the department and seems to have a "special " relationship with a staff member who is looking the other way. I'm sure you guessed that Molly and Iker are told to stop looking into the budget. This doesn't sit well with either of them. Then they find out that everyone is to attend a retreat with all the trimmings to hand out the best teacher award. Gee, what happened to the budget! After everyone is seated and they are ready to announce the winner Kent ends up face down in his haupia cheesecake . Things spiral out of control when he dies and her best friend Emma's brother Jonah is supposedly the prime suspect. Now with the help of her friends Emma and Iker they have to solve this mystery before the wrong person ends up in jail. <br />The adventure, mystery, and twists and turns in this book were so much fun. I loved being on the edge of my seat throughout reading and being totally surprised at the end. I didn't see it coming! I look forward to reading more by Frankie Bow.

Frankie Bow is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. Musubi Murder is this author's first novel, and after reading Musubi, I was really looking forward to what she'd publish next. Defunct Adjunct fulfilled my expectations. As with Musubi, the characters, their quirks, their interactions and dialog are highly entertaining, from beginning to end. Frankie Bow is gifted with an amazing deftness for language, local dialect, and turns of phrase. As with reading early Agatha Christie or Sarah Caudwell, reading Frankie Bow is a purely diverting and very amusing experience. And I always get at least one out-loud laugh. A big plus in my book.

10/10. excellent, would read again. sharp and funny.

Great read with knowing descriptions of campus and island life.

I've given this a 5* rating solely because I had no idea who the murderer was until the last couple of chapters when the main character Molly pounced on her gut instincts and cornered said murderer.<br /><br />The characters are painted as shallow creatures and the University a useless creator of graduates incapable of pursuing and succeeding in their chosen fields. The hunt for clues and the for the real murderer after an innocent tutor is arrested plods along in a way that makes the reader wonder if it is them that is semi interested in the outcome, the author or, indeed, the characters themselves. To be fair this is an addictive way to portray the story - the reader is never quite bored with the slowness of the pace and the characters seem to need it just to show they aren't Quite incapable of teaching/learning.<br /><br />If you like a mystery that is slow paced without huge quantities of action then this is definitely the book for you.<br /><br />This is a Goodreads First Read

The Case of the Defunct Adjunct<br />by Frankie Bow<br /><br />I wanted to love this story, but I didn't. I didn't hate it either. I did almost stop reading at 75% of the way through (reading on a Kindle Fire), but am glad I preservered, as the last 10-15% of the book was the best. <br /><br />The story takes place in Hawaii, at a small university, Mahina State University. I'm not sure which Island, but the author describes it as a smaller, less populated island of the Hawaii archipelago, so that lets out Hawaii, Maui, and Oahu, I guess. Must be close, however, to Oahu, as in one section, someone is airlifted to a hospital on Oahu. I also looked up Mahina State University, and did find a Mahina Indigenous Health Training Program, but it was associated with the University of Hawaii at Manoa. So, I'm guessing that Mahina State is a fictional university. <br /><br />In any case, most of the characters in the book are native Hawaiians or people who have lived a long time on the island. One of the things that bothered me about the writing was that the author attempted to identify those who were native to the island by the use of dialect -- and a little of that goes a very long way in my opinion. The most often used slang term was "da kine," which is a Hawaiian pidgin term that evidently means "the kind." While the use of this term wouldn't have bothered me if used just a couple of times, I noted it's use at 676, 731, 841, 1415, 1919, 2529, and 2791. Most of the time it was used by a specific character, Emma. <br /><br />Now, Emma is not the main character, she's the BFF of the main character, Molly. Emma is a graduate of Cornell University, yet her speech is riddled with slang and incorrect English which I for one would not expect from a Cornell graduate who is now a professor at a State University. It's almost as though Bow was trying to make her appear stupid (which she isn't) by showing her language to be so different from Molly's. For instance, other than the "da kine" use, at 1133 Emma says: "You coulda brung an umbrella, you know." And at 1196 she says "...I seen your byline!" At 1625, she says "Molly got this ticking time bomb who..." At 1855 she says "Eh, try wait, ah? So impatient, you.." and at 1863 "What is this?" Emma stared at the screen incredulously. "So junk, this music." Again at 2153, this Cornell grad (who also uses Yiddish terms in her speech) says "So you think it hadda do with the teaching award?" At 2270 and 2347 she tells another college professor to "Siddown." At 2758 she says "Pat and me found your door unlocked." At 3128, it's Emma again, with "Alls I said ..." These are just the ones I made note of. If any of the other college educated characters had filled their speech with idioms, slang, and low-brow speech, I might have believed it. In this case, it just seemed Bow wanted to make Emma look less than professorial. <br /><br />In fact, Bow tended to make at least two other the native Hawaiians' speech patterns seem low-brow, both being students. At 1072: "That classroom's kinda stink, you know," said the boy, "probably get some bad stuff in the air or something..." At 1089: "You wanna blow off steam you should bat on one heavy bag. They got 'em up at the gym. I can show you how if you like try." And at 2529: "We could do baby luaus, weddings, all da kine, but get one personal touch. Like uncle get too much to drink at the baby luau, we no whack.'im over the head or t'row 'im out into the road,nothing li' dat. We just get 'im on the couch, sleep it off. So no get all 'kapakahi,' yah?" <br /><br />And it wasn't just those native to Hawaii who got the short end of the dialect stick. Iker, whose ethnicity isn't mentioned to my recall, and who usually didn't lapse into dialect, at 1829 says: "It appears Kent did not buy these furnitures with his private funds..."<br /><br />Besides this, which may not annoy many of you as much as it did me, there were other things that made me think about stopping before the end. At 2688, Molly and Emma go into a meeting and sit on either side of another character, Pat. Yet, somehow, this sentence, thought by Emma, should make sense? "Emma nudged me." How? Did she reach over Pat? If so, is that a nudge?<br /><br />But the worst was that even though at least two students approached her about wanting to take her business classes the next semester, classes that she had never taught and that were taught by the character Rodge Cowper, she never bothers to check out why they thought she was teaching the classes or to check and see if she really was scheduled to teach the classes until she has a meeting with the dean's secretary, Serena, who tells her she has been scheduled to teach two classes in business (her area is writing) the next semester, which starts in less than a month. Sheesh. <br /><br />So, with so may things that made me crazy, what did I like? Well, I liked the mention of Elizabeth Peters' character, Amelia Peabody, at 1406. <br /><br />And, I thought the actual mystery part of the novel was well plotted. The pacing was a little slow for me, and many of the characters felt under-developed, but yet they were all likeable enough. While I would have liked a bit more development on what it means to be an adjunct and the problems faced by those teaching in such a position -- after all, the title did indicate that might be involved -- there was considerable inclusion of the ups and downs of academia. I also didn't feel that any of the things I hated about the book were incorrect, just a bit over-used and ill-considered. <br /><br />So, you might enjoy this look at life in Paradise. Me? I was very excited to have the new Stephanie Plum to dive into and divert my attention from this book. And no, I won't be checking out the next book in Bow's series.