The Scam (Paperback)

The trouble begins when Colonel Charles Warren Skinner decides to remarry. His bride-to-be, the wealthy and socially prominent - in her neck of the woods - Genevieve Fisher, is in truth something quite different. Her antics - past and present - would put Livia Augustus to shame. When her vicious attacks hit the colonel’s innocent daughter and son-in-law, Karen and David Holt, who live on Kauai, there’s hell to pay. Falsely accused of marijuana growing, pushing drugs and rape - and blackmailed for it, too - the Colonel’s family uncover Jenny’s secret past. A multitude of colorful characters, good and bad, from all over the Pacific and beyond get involved in the action. How the Colonel and his friends out-scam the scammers is the rollicking, frolicking story told. It has a happy ending.

Bettejo Dux left her native state of California, of which she is fifth generation, when she was eighteen and began her wanderings. She has lived and visited in many strange and unusual towns in Central and South America and the Far East. When she and her husband were "romancing the stone," she stayed in places where no other American lady had ever stayed. A resident of Kauai for over forty years, but an expatriate at heart, she thinks Kauai is about as far out as you can get and still be in. A professional actress, she performed at the Manila Theater Guild and at the Magic Ring Theater in the Hilton Hawaiian Village, at the time the only professional theater in Hawaii. She did "Steel Magnolias," directed by Arnold Meister, and "Gin Game" on Kauai. She is a writer. She was Woman's Page Editor of the Pali Press and wrote a featured column for the Honolulu Star Bulletin Advertiser Sunday Edition. She has had several pieces published locally. A political activist and devout non-believer, she writes a blog she calls a "column" under the head bettejo. She can be a royal pain in the ass - ask any of her detractors. She loves to tweak their tails and watch them wiggle. To many, however, she is personally known as a witty and humorous, delightful and engaging lady. She loves to dance, sing and party, and is very happy pixilated. She loves chardonnay and cheese and crackers. A former member of the Mokihana Club, the oldest women's club on Kauai, and the Poipu Rotary Club, she is presently an honorary member of the National Tropical Botanical Gardens, her neighbors up the hill in Kalaheo. She is an off-island member of the Waikiki Yacht Club. She and her husband sailed and raced the channels around Hawaii for years. She still practices yoga and her measurements are the same now as they were forty years ago. She says, as Gypsy Rose Lee did, "I've got everything I came in with, only my cargo has shifted." Her favorite woman writer is still Dorothy Parker. Her favorite male writer is James Thurber, followed by Dean Koontz. THE SCAM is her first novel, but there are three fantasies to be published soon.