This is book 16 of the "Travis McGee" series.

This note contains spoilers for the book.

Sixteenth in the McGee saga. An old friend comes back and leaves some money with him. She's nervous, and gives instructions on what to do if she doesn't come back and claim it. Surprising, by this point, no regular reader of the series, she doesn't make it past the second chapter.

So McGee and Meyer head around the coast to look into it, and find a semi-amateur drug smuggling operation and, of course, an ongoing string of murders. If you ever think you might be in a Travis McGee book, duck fast. Not that it'll help.