Джеррилин Фармер – лучшие книги

With two straight number one Los Angeles Times bestsellers, three consecutive Agatha Award nominations, two Anthony nominations, and Lefty and Macavity Awards already in the pot, mystery author par excellence Jerrilyn Farmer is cookin'! Now her oh-so-delectable creation, spunky Hollywood event planner and caterer to the stars Madeline Bean, finds herself in a murderous stew once more, in an exceptionally tasty hardcover debut simmering with intelligence and outrageous humor and spiced with real surprises.

It's another great gig for Mad Bean Events: catering the gala season wrap party for the runaway TV hit, gourmet cook-off game show Food Freak. But Madeline's going to have to keep her delicious Cajun treats simmering on the stove a while longer now that the studio has decided to film one more episode . . . and the head writer has mysteriously disappeared. The good news is the show's producer must replace the missing writer and offers Maddie the temporary position, since there's no one in L.A. who's more up on her food facts than La Bean.

Joining the show's oddball staff, Maddie must quickly meet the demands of this intense, new, behind-the-scenes world of television, and is soon busily creating clever culinary puzzles for the show's contestants. But in her new office she immediately uncovers tantalizing hints as to the missing writer's whereabouts. And solving puzzles in real life is a Maddie Bean talent second only to her superb knowledge of edibles. Certain clues she finds scattered around the workspace -- including a troubling Post-it note that hints of homicide -- have her wondering whether the AWOL writer truly flew the coop ... or was written off for good!

A Hollywood writer's life had sounded sweet, but Maddie finds the whirlwind of twisted off-camera affairs of the Hollywood demi-mighty -- where ego-wrestling is an extreme sport -- can leave a bitter aftertaste, especially when a rare and priceless packet of Kool-Aid, an amorous celebrity chef, and a bubbling Cajun gumbo from hell leads her indirectly to a murder. Suddenly, Madeline Bean's having-her-cake-and-eating-it-too temp job becomes a recipe for disaster, setting the cagey caterer in the lethal sights of a killer.

Mah-Jongg?

Yep. In hip Hollywood, that kitsch old game is fast becoming the next "new" obsession -- and that calls for a party! Madeline Bean and her charming partner Wesley Westcott are determined to throw a gonzo Chinese New Year banquet. But among the hot mah-jongg tiles, the steamy dim sum, and the frosty Singapore slings, no one expects to find one of the players ice-cold dead!

Meanwhile, in one of the historic celebrity mansions that Wesley is restoring as a sideline, a well-aimed crowbar uncovers a stash of precious objects -- including an antique mah-jongg set. As Madeline pieces together how these two events are connected, she must separate the yin from the yang to uncover a killer. It doesn't take a fortune cookie to spell it out. There is always a price to pay...whether gambling at mah-jongg -- or murder.

The Pope is coming to breakfast, and Madeline Bean's got frittatas on the skillet. What a coup for gourmet caterer Mad Bean and her company, the event-planning wizards, chosen to mastermind L.A.'s official welcoming extravaganza. Pulling off the early morning meal for His Holiness, and two thousand high profile bigwigs, sounds like great fun for the unflappable Ms. Bean.

But things quickly go from serene to sinister when a young priest turns up dead in the bed of an uninhibited Hollywood star, and a yellowed page of Latin scrawl, found tucked in an old book of mouthwatering Church recipes, reveals a mysterious Jesuit Brother's shocking past. Even the course of Madeline's ragged love life gets a jolt as charming Xavier Jones, the man who left her at the alter ten years ago, reappears and still won't explain why he bugged out. With the Pope arriving any day, it's up to Madeline to sort out this unholy mess of burnt brioche, tantalizing treasure, pesky naked starlets, and homicidal caterers-or a party that should go down in history could be history before it even begins.

Although not about to say "I do" anytime soon, hip party-planner Madeline Bean is no stranger to the phenomenon known as the LA wedding; the good, the bad and the kind where the party lasts longer than the marriage. Still, Maddie never expected to be the guest of Vivian Duncan, the West Coast's grande dame of wedding consultants, at a lavish affair held amidst the dramatically lit fossils in the Nature Museum's Hall of Dinosaurs. While checking out the glittering event, Maddie, with her keen event planner's instinct, realizes something is not quite right, but what? The groom is on time. The bride is beautiful. And a corpse wearing a Cartier bracelet is dangling from the triceratops skeleton. Ah, yes. That. With people disappearing and the bride in tears, Maddie just may be the next species to become extinct...unless she can reveal the murderer fast. Quicker than she can whip up a white chocolate wedding cake, Maddie follows the trail deep into dark jungles---urban and otherwise---amid tantalizing tales of smuggled gems, while fending off a nervous bridegroom, a crazed carjacker, and a half-naked ice-sculptor and his trusty chainsaw. Along the way, she discovers something old, something new, something deadly and something a wedding pro should never, ever do

Madeline Bean, caterer to the stars, is in the middle of the biggest job of her career. She and her partner Wesley have pulled off Hollywood's most outrageous A-list Halloween party for notorious producer Bruno Huntley, complete with an eerie fortuneteller who is astonishingly accurate, and exotic food that's to die for. Before long, Bruno is thrashing and writhing out on the dance floor. Just one problem: he's not standing up, And soon, he's not even breathing.

The newly late Mr. Huntley was poisoned, that's certain. But the number of suspects with a yen to send Bruno to the devil could fill an audition for extras in the next Quentin Tarantino flick. When Wesley is arrested for the murder because of a long-standing dispute with the maniacal mogul, Madeline knows he couldn't be guilty. But to prove it, she has to wade through the muck of a mudslinging family, outrun a pair of crazed canines, dodge a pair of well-aimed bullets, and expose a slew of secrets that could put a soap opera to shame. Somebody's cooked up a murder, and it's up to Madeline to find out who--before she faces a fadeout of her own.