HAWAIIAN LEI OF SHRUNKEN HEADS is Katerina Sestakova Novotna's first fiction book. It is a collection of murder stories that are dark, funny and philosophical at the same time. They all take place in Hawaii, a place known for ethnic and cultural diversity, and they present a few different perspectives on race, religion and other topics. The author, a philosopher by training, is not afraid to touch controversial questions that have puzzled the greatest thinkers in a humorous and nonacademic way. The narrators of her stories are not scholars. They are personalities as diverse as an insane Native Hawaiian murderer, a white racist veteran, a Buddhist student, a Russian prostitute, a mutt dog and many others. Humans are slaughtered as a sacrifice to gods in these stories, so some parts of the book are gruesome and not suitable for more sensitive readers. Yet it is not a horror book in the strict sense.