The Retirement Home

The Happy Haven Retirement Village is marketed as a miracle of modern care—a self-contained, secure village modeled after Hogeweyk, designed to give seniors with dementia a life of dignity and normalcy. For Amy Patrelli, it is a godsend. After her mother, Linda, is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, Amy reluctantly tours Happy Haven and grows to admire the concept and vision presented. Moreover, Linda seems happy there and her memory issues seem to be improving with each day that passes.

But Happy Haven is not what it seems. It is a testing ground for a military-grade bioweapons program conducting binary drug trials on human subjects. The facility is divided into two distinct wings. The East Wing houses the "disposables"—residents with no family or next of kin—who are administered Sultuzole, a drug that decreases cognitive function by mimicking the effects of early-onset dementia. In controlled doses, recipients rapidly decline in cognitive function until they die. The West Wing houses the "controls" and the "enhanced"—residents with families watching closely—who receive experimental cognitive drugs designed to increase cognitive awareness exponentially.

And when Linda witnesses a murder, Amy and her friend Les Mallard, a disgraced journalist, must get to the bottom of what Happy Haven is hiding behind its cheerful facade.