A Most Deadly Retirement

Another suspicious death occurs at Oklahoma's Timberdale Retirement Center in this featherweight cozy. Before Violet Mayberry dies from a blow to the head she received in a field next to the retirement home, she reports seeing a red light and hearing a grass trimmer. Timberdale's cartoonish manager, who channels to Cleopatra, gets frantic about bad publicity and leans on her assistant, Laura Michaels, to keep the ``old fools'' in line. Before the deputy sheriff, Laura's love interest, can sniff out a single clue, another ``old codger'' spots the light at 3 a.m., follows it into the field and is clubbed to death. Maude Thuringer, mystery fan and self-appointed crime ``expert,'' marshals fellow Timberdale residents to investigate; unsettling information about the center's new security man is uncovered; and another death is barely averted as residents continue to try to figure things out for themselves. When Laura herself sees the red light, she must decide whether to follow it alone or head for help. It's not hard to predict what she'll do-as one resident says, ``foolishness is the order of the day around this establishment.'' Miles has mixed a frothy tale to please those who enjoyed Murder in Retirement and A Permanent Retirement. (June)