It’s no vacation that brings Greg McKenzie and his wife Jill to the glistening white sand beaches at Perdido Key, Florida. Architect/engineer Tim Gannon, son of the McKenzies’ closest friends in Nashville, has been found dead of a gunshot wound. Self-inflicted, says the deputy who investigated, a clear case of remorse over a design flaw in a high-rise beachfront condo that caused a balcony collapse, killing two people. But it looks otherwise to Greg and Jill, who find plans missing, an obstinate contractor, a too-slick developer and an inspector angry over a disrupted love affair. After two hoods work him over, Greg realizes Jill is in danger, too, and if this is a murder case, he had better solve it without delay.
 

Excerpt
Out beneath the stars and the soft glow of a rising moon, the music flowing through the doorway changed to a staccato Spanish beat, ratcheting up a few decibels. Two couples began doing a lively imitation of a flamenco dance. As they clapped and stomped, the crack in the balcony widened. No one heard the crunching, grinding sound of the concrete giving way, but the screams of terror that followed sent hairs bristling on the necks of everyone inside.

Claude Detrich had just stepped back through the door. He spun around and gawked as he saw the balcony tilting downward, like a true drawbridge, headed in the wrong direction. The chains held, then snapped. Fortunately, it was enough time for some of the revelers to grab the vertical iron supports or the top rung of the railing.

“Oh, my God.”

That was all Detrich could mutter as he stared down through the dim moonlight at the sight of people clinging frantically to the black wrought iron sides, others heaped against the railing at the bottom like a pile of dirty clothes.