Sun Gate Golf Retirement Community Doesn't have a Shuffleboard. It Solves Murder Mysteries

LAKELAND, Fla. & MIAMI - Sept. 3, 2026 - PRLog -- This is not a Disney World postcard. There is no castle at the end of I-4. There is a gated golf-community trailer park in snowbird country, a missing sense of peace, and a murder that never made the HOA agenda.

Florida Retirement Is Murder by Florida resident American Artist & Author Kris Courtney is the cozy comedy mystery built for readers who already love the Sunshine State's wild streak — and want the laughs without the grim hangover. It sits in the same Florida conversation as Carl Hiaasen, Tim Dorsey, and Dave Barry: eccentric locals, sunshine satire, and behavior so Florida it needs no caption. Courtney's version is aimed straight at silver-haired amateur sleuths who refuse to act their age.

The pitch that keeps sticking: Janet Evanovich meets Carl Hiaasen in a retirement village.

Consistently Ranking in the TOP 10 of the Mystery Comedy genre everywhere!!

Cut through the quirkiest retirement villages along I-4, parked between I-75 and I-95, deep in Central Florida snowbird country. The town on the page is a fictional Lakeland. The community is Sun Gate: golf carts, mobile homes, tiki-hut talk, HOA rules, and overgrown-children retirees who treat gossip like evidence.

Widower Stewart Johnson came south for quiet. He got a tribe. Leda and the Sun Gate regulars do not fade into shuffleboard. Nosy Micah stirs the pot. Flirtatious Jodi walks through a scene and the temperature changes. A straight-laced Marine sergeant smells trouble and will not let it go. Together they turn a gated community into a laugh-out-loud sleuth adventure — pure Florida Man energy in white hair and sun visors.

Taglines the book already owns:
Snowbirds do more than just flock.
Wake Up, Earl!©

If you read Hiaasen for the state's beautiful madness, Dorsey for the road-trip chaos, or Barry for the Miami-level farce, this is the retirement-village cousin: same Florida DNA, cozy-mystery heartbeat. It belongs in the conversation of top mystery-comedy books — the kind book clubs finish in a weekend and then say, out loud, this should be a weekly TV comedy!

Readers already said:

• "Good Story."
• "Fun book to read."
• "I loved this book."
• "Funny, insightful and a must read."
• "Hooked at the title."
• "A hoot."

Great characters. Funny twists. A nice balance of emotion and action. Five stars on Amazon, Audible, and Barnes & Noble. International bestseller run across the USA, Canada, UK, and Australia. A Canada Law Humor chart pop. Listeners calling the audio essential.
The audiobook is not a side format. It is an award.

The Florida Retirement Is Murder audiobook took Best Cozy Mystery Team 2023. Grey-haired detectives. Mischievous snowbirds. A performance that makes Sun Gate sound lived-in. If the page is the community, the audio is the clubhouse.

• Creative Artists Agency (CAA) has queried film and television rights. That query remains pending. Readers keep saying the ensemble feels built for a hit TV comedy series: weekly Sun Gate mayhem, silver-haired antics, golf-cart chase energy, and a mystery that can run a season without turning mean.

That is the market fight. Not another grim Florida crime novel. A screen-ready cozy comedy mystery with Florida Man behavior, trailer-park golf-community comedy, and characters people want to visit every Thursday night.

Available wherever great books are sold:
eBook. Paperback. Award-winning audiobook. Amazon. Audible. Barnes & Noble. And the rest of the shelf where readers still hunt a funny mystery.

Official book home: https://www.cozycomedymystery.com

Florida mystery hub: http://www.floridamystery.com
Book page: https://www.kriscourtney.com/florida_retirement_book/
Snowbird comedy mystery page: https://www.kriscourtney.com/florida-snowbird-comedy-mystery.html
Headline feed: https://www.kriscourtney.com/mystery-feed.html

Author Home Page: https://www.kriscourtney.com

Buy the eBook: https://www.amazon.com/Florida-Retirement-Murder-Kris-Cou...
Listen now: https://www.amazon.com/Audible-Florida-Retirement-Is-Murder/dp/B0BS2CSJX5
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/Florida-Retirement-Murder-Kris-Courtney/dp/B0BRDPJXPM
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/florida-retirement-is-murder-kris-courtney/1142625809

Media / reader one-liner
A Florida author wrote the snowbird cozy comedy mystery that feels like Hiaasen crashed a gated golf-community trailer park — and the five-star reviews, award-winning audiobook, and CAA film/TV query say the series is already knocking.

Kris Courtney,
American Artist & Author

Florida Retirement Is Murder

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