Book ten in the Vasily Korsokovach Investigates series
Golden years? Maybe. Golden opportunity? Definitely.
A few days after returning to California from his honeymoon, Deputy Chief Vasily Korsokovach finds himself in the office of the Orange County Chief Medical Examiner; while not normally prone to hyperbole, Dr. Marguerite Pembroke’s sudden concern over a series of deaths that have recently crossed her exam table makes Vas wonder if maybe the veteran coroner needs a little time off herself. Still, he can’t deny that there are some unusual threads tying the deaths together: all were elderly male retirees who, until recently, had been whiling away their final hours on earth at one of the many assisted living facilities scattered across Orange County, and every one of them had trace amounts of an unusual drug that Dr. Pembrooke can’t completely identify. It’s too much of a coincidence not to do some digging, especially since Vasily has never actually believed in coincidence.
Tracing the last months of the victims leads Vasily to the Whispering Winds senior community in Rancho Linda and an unexpectedly vibrant social scene for those pushing triple digits, though one that seems to be proving exceptionally deadly for men of a certain age. While somewhat shocking to find a place nearly as hedonistic as the Olympic Village, what seems more concerning are some of the unorthodox methods used to enable such high spirits, including the use (or misuse) of whatever medications the residents have access to. But without a clear source of the strange drug Dr. Pembroke discovered, Vasily is forced to concede that maybe, just maybe, it was simply time for the seniors in question — until he remembers some of the more unsavory aspects of his time at the Olympics, including the shady characters just outside the village willing to sell anyone, anything, for any price.
Pulling that thread leads Vas into the world of commercial enterprises that have sprung up to serve senior citizens during their golden years, a veritable cabal of for-profit operations determined to squeeze every last penny out their clients before literally discarding them. Horrified at how too-trusting victims had become line items on someone’s spreadsheet, Vas does what only he can and goes after the those whose morality bears little resemblance to their fellow humans.
Coming April, 2027