Renegade rich girl Andy Kendricks isn't the belle of any Dallas ball—and that's just the way the debutante dropout likes it! She's got a good life and a great man: her defense attorney boyfriend, Brian Malone. Brian's such a straight arrow that he had to be dragged kicking and screaming to a close friend's bachelor party at a sleazy local "gentleman's club."

So why is the groom-to-be saying that Brian left the bacchanal arm-in-arm with "the hottest body in the Lone Star State?" And what was that hot body doing stone-cold dead in the trunk of Brian's car? And where is Brian anyway? The cops are looking for Andy's allegedly unfaithful/possibly homicidal beau who hasn't been seen since the party. But Andy can't believe her upstanding lover is a murdering fool, and she's determined to prove it—though she might end up with a lot more broken than just her heart.

"Lordy, Lordy, come to mama, sweet cheeks! Rub a little sweat on me! Shake that bonbon till you break it!"

I cringed at the screaming woman who stood but a foot to my right inside the packed hotel ballroom. Colored spotlights danced across the faces fixed ahead at the stage a dozen rows in front of me, where well-oiled male dancers gyrated and ripped off what little clothing they had on to start with. It was the first time I'd ever seen men in uniform with tear-away pants and jackets. Did any branch of the military actually wear G-strings? It was certainly one way to inspire shock and awe.

"Hey, sweet meat, over here! Gimme some lovin'!"

For Pete's sake.

The woman howled like a twelve-year-old at a Backstreet Boys concert, and she was old enough to be somebody's mother. No, more like somebody's grandmother, I decided, taking in the white hair upswept in the bouffant 'do and the cavernous lines that pleated her face (not to mention the Stride Rite tennis shoes).

I thought of my own mother, the ultradignified Cissy Blevins Kendricks, society maven extraordinaire, and knew she'd rather be caught dead than attend a Chippendales' show, waving dollar bills in the air to entice scantily clad male strippers over for a quick round of dirty dancing.

Though I'd pay through the nose to see something like that.

Heck, I'd kill to see it.

Since I, Andrea Blevins Kendricks, fruit of said dignified mother's loins, stood amongst the crazed crowd viewing the, um, scenery, I guess that made me something less than stand-up. Though I was here under duress, let me make that very clear.

As Enrique Iglesias crooned, "Let me be your hero, bay-bee," the assorted buffed bods trickled from the stage and into the throngs of berserk females, pausing only to bump and grind for tips.

"Bring it home to mama, sweet cheeks!" the liquored-up woman beside me hollered louder than Minnie Pearl yodeling "Howww-deeee!" at the Grand Ol' Opry.

I wanted to tell her to give it a rest.

But it was too late.

Sweet Cheeks was heading our way.

The sight put dear old Granny in a tizzy, and she gasped, "Oh, dear Lord, oh, dear, Lord," again and again, as if a witness to the Second Coming.

I considered sticking my fingers in my ears, until I felt a nudge, as the blonde on my left leaned over to yell, "Gird your loins, Chippie Virgin, 'cuz this one's on me."

If I hadn't already been gritting my teeth—I was dooming myself to porcelain veneers someday, wasn't I?—I would've started then.

"Thanks, but no thanks, Allie," I got out, loud enough to be heard above the music, only Allie wasn't paying the least attention. "Are you listening to me?" I tried again, but the witch (with a capital B) in the size two Seven jeans merely raised her arm higher and wagged more bills than poor old Grandma was offering.

Damn her for being so aggressive.

She was bound and determined to embarrass me.

I sunk down into the metal folding chair, hoping I'd disappear and wishing I'd refused Brian's suggestion that I go out with Allie tonight, help Allie show Eleanor—his friend Matty's fiancée—a fun night on the town, because Eleanor had only just moved to Dallas from Pittsburgh and didn't know anybody.

Well, anyone except Allie, apparently, who happened to be Brian's colleague at Abramawitz, Reynolds, Goldberg, and Hunt (aka ARGH), as well as his ex-girlfriend.

Not a combination I liked any better than pickles and peanut butter.

And it made me just about as nauseous.

Like a numskull, I'd let him talk me into it, mainly because Brian was out on the town himself, at a strip club "celebrating" with Matty.

What better way to even the score while he was ogling big-breasted strippers than by ogling, well...

Susan McBride got the idea for her Debutante Dropout Mysteries while a sorority pledge at the University of Texas, watching the Dallas debutantes practice their curtsies in study hall. The debut of the series, Blue Blood, won the Lefty Award for Best Humorous Mystery of 2004 and was nominated for an Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original. The second in the series, The Good Girl's Guide to Murder, was an Anthony Award nominee and a BookSense Also-Recommended Title. All four mysteries, including The Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club and Night of the Living Deb, are Featured Alternate Selections of the Mystery Guild. Susan currently lives in St. Louis, Missouri.