Detective Lieutenant Francis "Sheik" Yoshikawa knows the system. He works it every day. He's seen how easily the truth gets buried under a trade of favors. Deals happen behind closed doors, and when something goes wrong, someone pays to keep it quiet.
Most of the time, he keeps his distance.
But when a woman is found murdered in the home of his closest friend, Wally Yoshida, distance is no longer an option. What should have been a small gathering among friends becomes a crime scene, and Sheik is pulled into a case that cuts close.
The victim is a mainland guest with a past no one can fully account for. The last man seen with her is Harry "Happy" Tokuda, a grifter Sheik has chased for years, slipping past consequences every time. To clear his friend, Sheik must confront an old nemesis who has always stayed just out of reach.
As the case unfolds, facts tangle with loyalties. Stories shift. People protect what matters to them. What they remember, and what they choose not to say, begin to matter as much as the evidence itself. The closer Sheik gets, the harder it becomes to believe that justice and loyalty can exist in the same place.
Set in postwar Honolulu, Sporting Girl blends sharp detective work with a strong sense of place, revealing a city shaped by memory, obligation, and quiet compromise.
For readers of Naomi Hirahara and character-driven historical mysteries. Follow Francis "Sheik" Yoshikawa's investigations in Kona Winds, Red Dirt, and Char Siu.
Scott Kikkawa is the author of a series of noir detective novels set in postwar Honolulu. He has been honored with an Elliot Cades Award for Literature and a crime fiction short story of his was selected as one of the "Other Distinguished Stories of 2021" in the 2022 Best American Mysteries and Suspense Anthology. He is a columnist and Associate Editor for The Hawai'i Review of Books. He lives in Honolulu. Sporting Girl is his fourth full-length novel featuring Francis "Sheik" Yoshikawa.
"Detective Francis ʻSheikʻ Yoshikawa is back! Scott Kikkawa's hard-living, Chaucer-quoting knight in a Cadillac Eldorado peels back the veneer of respectability over 1950s Honolulu to reveal the violence—and hope—buried just below. His latest homicide case hits close to home when a guest is murdered inside the residence of his high-school buddy and fellow veteran, Wally Yoshida. As the bodies pile up and the masks fall away, the Sheik fights doggedly to shelter his friend and bring the killers to justice, even as those goals seem to become ever-less compatible." — Zakariah Johnson, crime writer and Mystery Tribune reviewer
"Only Scott Kikkawa can blend Chaucer with noir, throw Middle English in with Japanese and Hawaiian pidgin in a rare look at postwar Honolulu through the eyes of a local. Complex, diverse, compelling characters and gripping story showcase both the beauty and underbelly of Hawai'i in Kikkawa's wonderful novel." — Jennifer K. Morita, award-winning author of Ghosts of Waikīkī
"Kikkawa shows a real talent for the kind of character-driven comedy that makes watching or reading the great noirs of the 1930s, such as The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep, so enjoyable." — HONOLULU Magazine
