Parker DuPont, P.I.

Parker DuPont is a family man, with a wife, three children, and sister. As happens to many men Parker’s age, he faces the mid-life thing, and decides he wants to hang his own shingle, rather than spend the next 20-plus years as a St. Petersburg police detective. Private investigator sounds very appealing, and so off he goes into the private world to become his own boss. Welcome to his world.

Detective Parker DuPont turned in his letter of resignation (he forgot to tell his wife) and is just weeks away from officially hanging his PI shingle when he catches his first case. At first, he thinks it’s a joke being played upon him by a colleague jokester. It is certainly not a joke. Charlie Porter was struck by a golf ball and killed on the sixth fairway of a Riverview, Florida, golf course. Accidental death by golf ball, it is ruled. But there are no witnesses, nor does anyone come forward to fess up to being the individual who hit the ball.

Lester Winters, in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, submits to an experimental procedure (a pacemaker for his brain) to restore his memory. He first recalls a dead woman who, it is assumed by his wife, is his mother from years past. As weeks go by and Lester’s "pacemaker" does its job, he recalls that it is Caroline who is dead, not his mother. His wife decides that it’d be prudent to hire an attorney to help find the answers. The attorney hires Parker DuPont, who soon discovers there is a lot more to Lester’s memory than just a dead woman by the name of Caroline.

Sky Deakins doesn’t believe that her husband committed suicide; however, to get to the truth she may have to reveal a secret that she’s kept close to her heart for 23 years, 22 of which she has been a widow. It’s a secret that she’s thinking she may not want to take to her grave anyway. At 80 years of age, that time may not be far off. And what does the 2016 future senatorial candidate, Dallas Maguire, have to do with any of it? And what about Gracie’s secret? Will Randi Leigh make Parker an uncle? Can Parker and his dad actually become friends?

Hieronymus is not only ready to die, he wants to die. It’s his time; however, the laws of Florida forbid him from carrying it out on his own. Self-murder, they label it. How many of the youngsters - a title he freely applies to anyone under the age of 65 - who put their blessings on such a law would change their minds about the whole self-murder thing once they, themselves, come to realize their days are at an end, that there is no point in trying to hold on, that there is no longer a life while certain death hoovers about them like a cold fog?

In the beginning it was easy and quite lucrative. When wealthy couples, childless and sterile, want to start a family by way of a quiet and private adoption and are willing to spend what it takes, why not help them out? Put together a team and have one of them dress like she belongs, then walk out of the hospital with a newborn tucked in her bag. It worked perfectly in Tampa and then Orlando, followed by Miami a few months later. An easy hundred grand per child split among the four team members.