THE FLAMING LUAU OF DEATH

Even murder can’t stop the fun when event planners Madeline Bean and Wes Westcott (Perfect Sax, 2003, etc.) kidnap bride-to-be Holly Nichols for a bachelorette bash in Hawaii.

Holly and her sisters, Marigold, Daisy, Azalea, and Gladiola, plus best friend Liz Mooney, are having the time of their lives at the luau at Anaeho’omalu Bay. Swaying to the beat of the Fire Dancers of Death, they learn helo, k’ao and haholo steps from hula teacher Keniki Hicks. They sip Blue Hawaiis from coconut shells and scarf down Toro, Hamchi, Kanpachi, Hirame and Aji. The sushi chef is so smitten that he gives Mad a wasabi root, grown only in the Izu peninsula and Nagano region of Japan. And handsome Hawaiian Ekeka gives her a private hula lesson. But the next day’s spa session is spoiled when masseuse Pualani tells Mad that Keniki’s boyfriend Kelly Imo was found dead just steps from their luau site. Although she’s known Keniki less than 24 hours, Mad rushes to her apartment in Hawi (that’s where the Kohala Coast turns into the Hamakua Coast, past the old ranch town of Waimea), then to a secret meeting of the Hawaii Bamboo Association, back to the spa and over to the Grand Waikoloa for a swim with dolphins—leaving her little time to search for Holly’s first husband, whom she evidently forgot to divorce.

Enough food, adventure, Hawaiian history and ethnobotany to give you a stomachache the size of Kilhauea.