SEX AND DEATH ON THE BEACH

A Florida landlady is flummoxed by a body on her property.

The 100-year-old Florodora is described by its owner as “the most exclusive apartment building in Peerless Point, Florida.” A thorn in the side of developers, who want to replace the four-story building with condos, Norah McCarthy rents only to “a genuine Florida Man or Woman”—that is, a resident with a colorful past and scant respect for the law. So when plumbers Liam and Lester Sykes find a body during one of their frequent excavations in the Florodora’s courtyard, cooperating with the police investigation into the crime is the last thing on the residents’ minds. Especially not when the victim turns out to be Sammie Lant, whose application for the Florodora’s vacant apartment was turned down three times. Normally, a porn star like Sammie would be a prime candidate for residency at the Florodora, but Norah considers her vulgar since she tried to earn publicity for her upcoming Sex on the Beach by having literal sex on the beach with college football star Chet Parker, costing the promising young athlete his scholarship. Another body is found near Sammie’s, and with two crimes on her property, Norah feels moved to investigate, but her interest is really in proving that her late grandmother wasn’t involved in either murder, not in discovering who actually was. Norah’s debut is weird but never reaches the zany heights of Carl Hiaasen or Tim Dorsey. There’s a whiff of moral struggle—the oddballs vs. the sleazes—that limits how freely Viets is willing to wheel.

Except for the plumbers, no one’s doing any groundbreaking here.