The last thing Samantha Powers expected to do on her first official trip as a travel writer was help solve a murder.

Samantha ("Sam") Powers, a 34-year-old investigative reporter, has returned to her hometown of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, to take care of her ailing father, the town's former police chief. At the urging of a family friend, she takes a job as the new travel columnist for Carmel Today, a local lifestyle magazine.

After a few months of writing about area hotels and restaurants and navigating the office dynamics at her new position, Sam sets out on her first big press trip to a luxury resort on the Hawaiian island of Maui. There she meets her fellow travel writers and the resort representatives hosting the trip, all of whom become suspects when one of the writers-someone almost everyone had a reason to want to kill-is found dead in his suite. Sam's detective skills come in handy as she helps the handsome (and, yes, single) Maui detective solve the crime.

"Destination: Maui" is the first in the Destination Murder Mystery series, which combines exotic locales and a behind-the-scenes look at the travel industry with the twists and turns expected from a good mystery.