The party never ends when event planner/sleuth Madeline Bean is throwing it! The delectable creation of award-winning, number one Los Angeles Times bestselling author Jerrilyn Farmer, the irrepressible Mad Bean is back for big laughs and big trouble on the Big Island. Madeline Bean has planned phenomenal parties for Hollywood heavyweights of every ego size, but now she's cooking up something very special for one of her own -- a hip, surprise-destination bachelorette weekend at a fabulous-doesn't-do-it-justice resort in Hawaii for cherished employee and bride-to-be Holly Nichols. This hysterical riff on a luau will have everything. Tiki lamps. Hula lessons. A dead body washing in on the warm island tides. Okay, that wasn't in the original party plan. The uninvited corpse isn't the only shocker throwing a monkey wrench in the proceedings. Holly is getting cold feet about the whole engagement thing -- due, in large part, to a slight indiscretion in her past that may have left her not exactly single. Hey, what happens in Vegas is supposed to stay in Vegas, isn't it? But Madeline's not going to let a few little glitches like a mysterious preexisting husband and an island murder spoil Holly's wedding shower extravaganza -- not while there are still passion-fruit martinis to quaff and buff surfer boys to ogle. All she has to do is hunt down the first "Mr. Holly," who vanished the morning after, and get him to do the right thing. That, and keep a killer who's in their midst from leaving behind any more gruesome party favors. And then there's that freaking volcano that's making annoying ready-to-erupt noises ...

The Flaming Luau of Death
A Madeline Bean Novel

Chapter One

Male
(Married)

A tall, willowy blonde stood silently in the doorway to my office. She was wrapped, all six feet of her, in one striking color. Bright pink flip-flops with matching toenail polish. Hot pink jeans and jacket over a tiny pink bandeau. Shocking pink sailor's cap tipped at an angle above her white-blond bangs. How long had this vision of raspberry sherbet been standing there?

"Holly." My voice sounded calm. Good. I remembered to smile."Wow. You're early today."

"Um," she said. "I was actually kind of hoping I could maybe talk toyou. Just for a minute. You know, if you have time."

I straightened a few papers absently and in the process scuttled theocean turquoise travel brochure for Hawaii beneath the pile of chef'scatalogs and order forms on my desk, where it had been sticking out likea Britney Spears fan at a Julie Andrews concert.

"Hey, then," I said to my assistant, intoning just the right casual,cheerful note. "Sit down."

"Where's Wesley?" she asked, arranging her lean legs in a puzzle oftwists as she took the chair opposite my desk.

"Kitchen." I casually swept aside the pile of papers on my desk. "DoingFriday-morning stuff."

Wesley Westcott and I own an event-planning company in Los Angeles,going on eight years, which we operate out of my house. Holly hasbeen with us almost from the start. Our firm does every kind of way-outparty. Every kind. From the killer "Mock" Mitzvah we threw for thethirteen-year-old daughter of a millionaire rapper -- never mind that thefamily is Southern Baptist -- to a series of small dinners for a hip mahjonggclub of Hollywood Hills gamblers, we just kind of elevate the celebratoryinsanity to meet our town's taste for the lavish. For each event, Wesand Holly and I work out every detail, plan every menu option, and spenda ton of our clients' cash to achieve, as close as we ever can, a perfect party.

"Look, I know you're busy," Holly said, her manner much more subduedthan her outfit. "But ... "

"What's up?"

Holly fiddled with the enormous pink diamond on her third finger."You know how I am, right?"

I began to pay closer attention. Aside from the standard-for-Holly outrageouswardrobe -- the blinding garb and the neon-hued lipstick -- I wasbeginning to perceive that this didn't look entirely like my usual Holly.My usual Holly was a million smiles, a pedal-to-the-metal talker. But nowshe was quiet. And I noticed her twisting her ring around and around. "Issomething wrong, sweetie? Are you having some" -- there had to be akinder word than doubts -- "some thoughts about your wedding, Holl?"

"Yeah. How'd you ... ?" She looked up at me. "Well, yeah."

"Is it Donald?"

"Donald? No, no. Donald is great. He's fine."

"Okay, then. Cool." The way she was acting had me worried there.

"Donald?" she said, laughing. "He's fantastic. What a guy!"

In only two weeks' time, Holly Nichols was to have her big dream weddingand become Mrs. Donald Lake. There had been all the usual plansand festivities. I thought they were extremely cute together. But truthfully,as a couple, they'd been through more than their share of ups and downs.On any given month, frankly, it was difficult to remember if they were onor off. But for most of the past six months, they'd been on. Way on. Ilooked at my watch: 8:34. We had twenty-six minutes, but I really shouldhave been in the kitchen already working with Wes, so ... "Okay, talk."

"Maddie, you know how you help people sometimes? Not just withplanning the parties. I mean how you can solve problems for people.Like you look into things and figure them out."

"I like to get to the bottom of things. Yes."

"Take a look at this." Holly unzipped her hot pink purse, a narrowleather roll hardly large enough to hold a tube of lipstick and a pack ofmints. She pulled out a piece of white copier paper that had beenfolded, fanlike, into a tiny slip, and handed it across the desk to me.

I unpleated the paper. It held a printed message and appeared to bea printout from Holly's e-mail account. Netscape, I noticed right away,and in the subject field, it read: Ugly Trouble Coming. The e-mailwas from: nmfchef@gotmail.com, but that meant nothing. Anyonecould set up a gotmail account -- they were free and untraceable -- andhide their true identity. The date field said 5:02 this morning. It was addressedto Holly Dubinsky at holly@madbeanevents.com, her companye-mail account. The note read:

Mrs. Dubinsky,

Your husband won't be able to hide forever.And if we can't find him, we'll come and do ourdirty business with you. Be smart. Give us Marvinand we'll leave you alone.

It was not signed.

"But," I said, rereading the note, "it's a mistake. You're Holly Nichols. Your husband-to-be is a screenwriter named Donald Lake.This is not you."

"Well ... "

I looked up. Holly repositioned herself, rewrapping, right over left,long thin pink-denim legs.

"There's this other thing. And I wasmeaning to get to this other thing,Mad. I was meaning to. But time just sort of slipped away from me."

"This other thing?"

Holly tipped her jaunty cap at a slightly different angle and chewedher lip.

I waited as patiently as I could, considering Wes was presently in thekitchen just down the hall at the back of the house, receiving our secretguests all alone, and probably wondering why I was taking so long. FinallyI could hold it in no longer. "Holly? This other thing?"

The Flaming Luau of Death
A Madeline Bean Novel. Copyright © by Jerrilyn Farmer. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Excerpted from The Flaming Luau of Death by Jerrilyn Farmer
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