When their neighbor turns up shot and killed, Agnes and her housemates are excited to be able to pin the death of their friend Lilith on the same murderer – if only they can solve the crime themselves before the police do.
I picked up this book because the premise cracked me up. The image of these pensioners all creeping around trying to cover up one murder and solve another is just so dark and amusing. Of course, as I started reading I quickly found out that it wasn’t as straightforward as it appeared, as is the case with most things in this book.
This book has a rather unique narrative style in the fact that Agnes, the main character, and her merry band of geriatric housemates are quite hampered in their investigative efforts by the effects of their age – the early stages of dementia, hearing loss, arthritis, and much more get in their way about as much as the actual murderer does. At the same time, Agnes and her roommates are still the same people inside, trying to live their lives to the fullest in their own quirky ways. The mystery is also pretty intriguing, and I enjoyed the ingenuity with which the team go about cracking the case despite their lack of access to most traditional manners of investigation.
However – I’m not sure if it was due to issues with translation – I found the writing rather choppy, with lots of exclamation points and understated humor which more fell flat than landed. I also felt that the characters of the housemates were very vaguely sketched – only Agnes, Marshall, and Edwina are given more to do, and the latter more as kooky comic relief than anything else, and rather annoying at that. Considering the intriguing hints we get about their pasts and what we eventually learn about Sunset Hall, I would have liked to have gotten more into it. I don’t plan to read the sequel.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.
