BODYBAGGED!

When octogenarian Ari Hamadeh—a ruthless profiteer who grew phenomenally wealthy by supplying arms to both the Taliban and Afghanistan’s National Resistance Front—is found murdered near the tranquil courts of Cypress Bayou Park, suspicion immediately falls on his much younger wife, Ellie. Married just seven months, the linguistics professor and Afghan refugee stands first in line to inherit her husband’s blood-soaked fortune.

But Detective DeShan Jefferson, a divorced investigator battling entrenched corruption within the Houston Police Department, soon discovers that all six members of the "Pickle Barrel" pickleball league had motives of their own to want Hamadeh dead.

Convinced the police are incapable of uncovering the truth, league organizer Kathryn Miller—a retired Hollywood icon—gathers the players at her luxurious estate to conduct their own interrogation. Urging the group to map their connections to Hamadeh using a "Six Degrees of Separation" approach, Kathryn inadvertently untangles a lethal web spanning from the backlots of Los Angeles to the war zones of the Middle East:

Kathryn confesses that early in her acting career, she reluctantly fell under Hamadeh’s control and was coerced into starring in an adult film he produced.

Joe Amado, a stoic Delta Force veteran with a disfigured jaw, reveals Hamadeh was once a high-value target in a covert mission that left Joe permanently scarred and killed his closest teammates.

Walt Hogsworth, a cantankerous Army veteran, spent years working shady electrical contracts in the Gulf Emirates, dragging along his teenage daughter, Sweet Pea. He admits to rescuing her from an international organ-trafficking ring—one secretly bankrolled by Hamadeh.

As each player serves up carefully edited truths and devastating secrets, Detective Jefferson races to untangle the web before the killer smashes a final, lethal volley.