In a rollicking novel of comic suspense, residents of an sxclusive gated cmmu-nity engage in petty crimes and revenge schemes that threaten to escalate into something far more sinister.

Frank Pitchard has recently been leading a quiet, rather existence-even though he lives in Eden , an exclusive resort island community off the coast Florida . Forced into retirement when his company was taken over and “reorganized,” he spends his days sitting outside, reading The Worst- Case Scenario Survival Handbook, thinking about his loving deceased wife, and dream-ing up ways to get back at the corporate raiders. One bright spot is the lithe and beautiful Ariel, his wife's nurse, who's been hanging around since her death. Another is Randi, an Eden trophy wife currently between husbands. She gives Frank a set of binocu-lars and introduces him to bird-watching. Frank, however, uses the binoculars to spy on Cal Barlow, his crippled next-door neigh-bor, and one day sees him sitting in his wheelchair, cradling a blue-steel pistol.

The two men strike up a friendship soon afterward, when Cal happens upon Frank pushing a golf cart into the lake. An odd partnership develops-Cal eggs on frank's “pranks,” and frank feels that, once again, life has some spark.

But it is all about to unravel. What Frank doesn't know is that Cal is an ex-mobster in witness protection-and that he's sleeping with Randi right under Frank's nose. And Cal doesn't seem to realize that there's an assassin on his tail and that the feds aren't far behind.

In this wicked and sharply drawn tale of the shady places between good and evil, Michael Mewshaw once again proves him-self to be a storyteller of boundless talent.