This debut novel is by a well-known British TV personality and the creator of America’s Survivor, and Deal or No Deal shows. In a large posh British retirement home, a group of quirky retirees including a nurse, a psychiatrist, an extensively-tattooed union agitator, and a detective, meet weekly to solve cold cases from the police files purloined by the ex-detective.
When two local people known to them are murdered in quick succession, their attention is diverted to solving those cases, with complex interactions with the inept and corrupt local police. Numerous suspects are ranked by the club members on a 1-10 scale as possible culprits. The main characters are all eccentric, bordering on caricatures, but are entertaining with a few great one-liners.
There is abundant humour in the first third of the story. “Father Mackie crosses himself by the plinth at Christ’s feet. No kneeling for him these days, though, arthritis and Catholicism being an uneasy mix.” However the humour largely disappears in the later chapters. In an apparent effort to introduce mystery and intrigue, the author makes the plot and the numerous peripheral characters become more complex and unrealistic, but this succeeded only to confuse me; even at the end, after many more deaths, I was left uncertain about who did in who and why.
I appreciate the vivid imagination of the author, and enjoyed parts of this story, but as it evolved it became unnecessarily complicated and confusing with impossible to follow false leads, loose ends, and unrealistic peripheral characters.
Thanks,
Vera.
The Passionate Reader 