Sex and death on the beach

Norah McCarthy, owner of the Florodora, a beachside vintage apartment building in Peerless Point, Florida, only rents to eccentric tenants. Still, she refuses to rent to annoying adult entertainment star Sammie Lant, ultimately threatening the persistent Sammie during an argument. When Sammie's body is found by plumbers digging up the Florodora's outdoor plumbing, Norah quickly becomes a suspect. When a second body that also has a connection to Norah and her family is found in the same hole, Norah investigates to clear herself, her family, and Florodora's residents. Norah, with the help of residents, interviews suspects and reviews her grandmother's journals, but not before putting herself in danger. Complicating matters, after angering a prominent local family, Norah has a visit from the local code enforcement inspector, leading to dozens of citations which must be fixed in 30 days. The lovingly described south Florida setting, the close friendships among the Florodora's well-drawn, quirky residents, the push to save the Florodora, and Norah's slowly revealed family history add up to a satisfying cozy.

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 upcomingSex 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. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.