Customer Reviews

Killer Wedding (Madeline Bean Catering Mysteries #3)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Maddie Bean, in her third book, is an event planner who gets manipulated into taking a hand with a wedding that is to take place in a Natural History Museum. LA's top wedding planner is found dead on top of a dinosaur skeleton. Maddie is "forced" into the investigation. A top notch novel and the book, besides having a very good mystery, is full of wit and humor which in no way detracts from the mystery. Farmer gets better and better. Killer Wedding is quite a wonderful book and proves that Farmer continues to improve and certainly deserves her Agatha nomination for her second book, "Immaculate Reception."

When Madeline Bean & crew plan events - they usually do so with panache & style. This is what leads wedding planner diva Vivian Duncan to corner Maddie, forcing her to help out, while plotting to sell a reluctant Maddie the whole wedding consulting business. Realizing she's been set up, Maddie reconciles an arguing couple, gets invited to their over-the-top wedding at the L.A. Museum of Natural History only to find Vivian lying dead on top of a Triceratops skeleton. With a mysterious ice sculptor who disappears, the discovery of many of the wedding participants' former ties to a particular part of Africa, Madeline Bean finds herself involved in a complicated murder despite friend and would-be romantic partner Detective Chuck Honnett's misgivings.

This is the third book in a series which only gets better. Not your typical "theme" mystery, KILLER WEDDING contains strong characters and a complex story while entertaining and amusing you at the same time. Jerrilyn Farmer knows her stuff!

I loved Jerrilyn Farmer's first two Madeline Bean mysteries, Sympathy for the Devil and Immaculate Reception, but in Killer Wedding Ms. Farmer has outdone herself! I laughed so hard I cried. The scene in which the murder victim is found hanging from the jaws of a giant dinosaur skeleton has got to be one of the best I've read. And the author's sendup of the whole Hollywood party scene, not to mention a bunch of wildly zany characters, makes this mystery pure fun from start to finish. I am now adding JERRILYN FARMER to my list of all-time bestseller faves including Janet Evanovich, Sue Grafton and Diane Mott Davidson. Trust me, this writer is going to go far! BUY this book. You'll thank me.

This is the first novel I've read by Jerrilyn Farmer, but her first two are in my ToBeRead pile. Farmer's writing is witty, entertaining and well-wrought in the ways of humorous mysteries. The cast of secondary characters is manageable so that you don't need a score card to keep track of them and she gives the heroine Madeline Bean a generous share of male attentiveness as the plucky caterer cum sleuth picks her way through a debacle of a wedding to discover who killed the wedding planner and used her body as a dinosaurian accessory.

If you're a fan of Diane Mott Davidson, Sophie Dunbar or any of the writers of humorous mystery, you will enjoy Killer Wedding.

Note to Ms. Farmer: Please....less Arlo and *much* more Chuck Honnett

Many people have approached Madeline Bean since she became rich, all of who want her to buy their catering or party planning business. None are as persistent as Vivian Duncan, who is ready to retire from her wedding planning business. When Vivian invites Maddie and her friends to an extravagant wedding held at the Nature Museum, they attend. But before Maddie can convince Vivian that she seriously doesn't want the business, Vivian is found murdered and hanging from the triceratops skeleton. Now Maddie is being pressured by Vivian's daughter to solve the crime and help keep the business going. Can she find the killer and not become Vivian's successor, both in wedding planning and death? Throw in a lawsuit over the sale of her first business and complications in her love life, and you've got a great read.

This book continues the fun Madeline Bean catering series. All the great characters from the first two books are back and just as strong as ever. The plot moved quickly, deftly balancing twists, sub-plots, and development of the new characters. The climatic scene is a little cliché, but still a fun conclusion to a great entry in this series.

If you're already a fan of Maddie and co., be sure to read this great book. If you've never met them, you're in for a real treat. Grab the first book (SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL) and hang on for the wild, and incredibly fun, ride.

Madeline Bean and Wesley Westcott co-own Madeline Bean Events, an enterprise that plans events for clients. Recently, the company organized a successful welcome celebration for the visiting Pope. This has led to a large demand for their services among the rich and famous. However, the courts have prevented Maddie from accepting any work due to an injunction filed by the owners of her former company. Los Angeles' most prominent wedding consultant Vivian Duncan wants Maddie to buy her out of her wedding consultant business. Though the thought of coordinating a wedding leaves Maddie with hives, she is unable to reject the offer to the vindictive woman.

At the posh Silver-Bell wedding reception, Maddie decides to tell Vivian no. However, before she can complete her quest, Maddie finds Vivian's dead body. Someone obviously killed the wedding consultant and Maddie is determined to find out who the murderer is. Her search soon uncovers a wide range of suspects who had motive and opportunity to kill Vivian. Even as she conducts her own brand of sleuthing, Maddie finds time to be enamored with the lead detective and a jewel thief.

With the enjoyable and witty KILLER WEDDING, award winning Jerrilyn Farmer seems heading towards another Agatha or Anthony nomination. The independent heroine is a role model who thinks for herself, is nonjudgmental, yet is not afraid to voice her opinions. The fast-paced story line includes other likable characters that have appeared in previous Maddie Bean tales. Anyone who reads this novel will become a Bean collector for the series contains one of the better amateur sleuths.

Harriet Klausner

Oh goody, another Madeline Bean catering experience in the posh, and slightly peculiar, Beverly Hills. Mad's new business name is Madeline Bean Events, and back with her is assistant Holly and partner Wes. With money in their pockets, businesses are hounding them in hopes of being bought out by Mad and her entourage. One such business proposal comes from Vivian Duncan, Beverly Hill's premier wedding consultant. Once Madeline and Vivian meet on Rodeo Drive, Madeline finds herself reluctantly involved in Vivian's affairs, which leads her to murder, mayhem, and the handsome, reocurring Police Lt. Hunnett. As these continuing, never dull characters headed off to a wedding being held in a natural history museum, I was puzzled as to why a couple would marry in such a place. There is nothing romantic about it, especially the lighted elephant scene. A few pages later it is explained that the bride's grandfather is a famous TV personality of an old wildlife series and after all we are talking about an aberrant town full of eccentric people. Author Jerrilyn Farmer effectively shows us this is just the type of eccentricity that livens up her mysteries. The story line is well done and surprising -- not at all what I was expecting when I started reading. As the author leads her readers through a maze of suspects and clues, they can look forward to being fully entertained and amused by Mad Bean's mystery events.

Killer Wedding is one of the best books I have ever read. It fits right along with the other two books which came before it. Every sentence holds you in suspense and just when you think you have figured out the entire plot Mad. plus the rug out from under your feet and it turns out to be nothing like you thought it was. I recomended this book to anyone who loves mysteries and cooking, what a great combo.

This is the fourth mystery in the Madeline Bean Catering Mystery series, and if you enjoyed the previous installments, you will not be disappointed here. Madeline is in the middle of professional litigation, love troubles and boredom brought on by her enforced unemployment. She is invited to a posh wedding and plans to use the occasion to let wedding planner Vivian Duncan know that she really does not intend to take over Duncan's business -- until the planner turns up dead on the skeleton of a triceratops. Enmeshed in the wedding and worried the police are after the wrong suspect, Madeline becomes active in her own investigation.

The mystery is fun and is resolved satisfactorily. Maddie is an intelligent heroine and her charming colleagues, Wesley and Holly, are here also. We witness many interesting and delectable dishes being prepared, and we get a bit of Hollywood gossip thrown in.

This is a fun mystery with likeable characters.

KILLER WEDDING, the third in the Madeleine Bean culinary series, is a delight. Madeleine has three (count 'em, three!) men courting her, along with every less-than-successful catering firm in Southern California, all who want her to buy them out. Farmer's fast-paced plotting kept me guessing to the very end of the book. This one is sure to please any cozy lover.