Alan Saxon flies to Honololu to act as best man at the wedding of a close friend, Donald Dukelow, an American golfer who has always beaten Saxon in play-offs. In the party are the groom's mother, who hates the idea of her son marrying a Hawaiian beauty so much younger than him, and Dukelow's first wife, Heidi, a keen golfer and admirer of Saxon.

Troubles start when Saxon and Heidi play a round on the Ko Olina course. Things get rapidly worse that evening when Saxon and Dukelow have a meal together. They go into a nightclub with disastrous results. Though Saxon manages to carry his friend back to the hotel, he finds him brutally murdered in his bed the next morning. Since Dukelow has joked that he wanted Saxon there as a bodyguard, the latter feels guilty—especially when he realizes how easily he was duped.

To solve the crime and avenge his friend, Saxon has to investigate the Kaheiki family into which Dukelow was about to marry. When he lifts the stones, he does not like what he finds underneath them and he is soon in jeopardy himself. In addition to calming Heidi, consoling Dukelow's mother, keeping the police off his back, following his own lines of inquiry and dealing with the violent Nick Kaheiki—he has to keep one step ahead of two people who seem intent on killing him. Indeed, it's almost as if they're involved in a play-off to see who can murder him first.

Unaware of who either of his assassins might be, Saxon weaves, dodges and tries every trick he knows to stay alive. Hawaii is no dream holiday for him. Honolulu Play-Off is a racy golf mystery with an intriguing Hawaiian cocktail of murder, suspense, deception and family conflict. It's the sixth novel in the Alan Saxon series.