Death at Paradise Palms

Cody Ziegler, a movie producer living on Millionaires' Row at The Homestead, disappears. His wife Olivia — a retired actress — is certain it is foul play, and when a ransom demand for a million dollars arrives with clear instructions not to involve the cops, she turns to the only investigators she can use: Moira, Rick, Philip and Lizzie, the retirement community's unofficial detective agency.

Cody had no shortage of enemies: a disgruntled employee, a film-maker he cut loose, and a hundred people who knew exactly what he was worth. Then his car is pulled out of a nearby lake with something inside it that changes the shape of the case, and the perfect marriage the Zieglers presented to the world starts to look like a performance — which puts Olivia herself in the frame.

Meanwhile the club is fraying: Philip and Lizzie's marriage is in trouble, and someone is leaving Moira notes that suggest her past has followed her to Florida. The second Retired Detectives Club mystery runs its investigation and its four sleuths' private lives on the same fuse.