In English detective novels, the characters very often gather in a country house. As a novelist you quickly figure out that that’s a great way to put them all in one place so Fiction Business can take place. Someone can get murdered, usually.
Hence in this book, the characters meet either in Janet and Walt’s house, or on his boat. No one gets murdered. Although they do joke about it, what with Len being godfather to Cassie’s new baby (when she finally adopts one).
In America, we gather for holidays and watch football.
So we have Thanksgiving at Janet and Walt’s. Their conversation serves as backstory for The Big Bucks, where they met.
See? “Exposition!” This is big-time professional novel-writing here.
The Dallas-Miami “game in the snow” on Thanksgiving 1993 is one of the most famous games in NFL history.
The NFL’s copyright rules prevent me from embedding the video, so you’ll have to go watch it now if you’re interested. I describe it almost play by play in the story.
They dance to The Way You Look Tonight, by Frank Sinatra.