Review by Booklist Review
Six eccentric, geriatric people share a house in the English village of Duck End. They frequently get involved in solving local murders, but the latest case can wait. Their house's heating system has died, no one's available to fix it, they're all freezing--and then they discover they've won a holiday in a luxury ecohotel on the west coast of Britain. So off they trundle to the Eden Hotel, which is everything they hoped for and more. Unfortunately, they can't seem to avoid getting mixed up in murders most foul, so when one of the hotel guests turns up dead under suspicious circumstances, the sleuthing six naturally feel compelled to investigate. One of their number, Agnes, who's a bit bossy but a natural leader, heads up planning how they'll dig into the case. But when more dead bodies turn up, and Agnes herself is in danger, it's all-hands-on-deck to find the killer. This madcap, quirky, laugh-out-loud funny, thoroughly delightful tale is as charming as it is improbable. It will especially appeal to fans of Richard Osman.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Swann follows The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp with another playful cozy centered on the octogenarian residents of Sunset Hall, former policewoman Agnes Sharp's family home in the tiny English village of Duck End. When kooky Sunset Hall housemate and former Secret Service agent Edwina Singh wins a trip to the Cornwall coast, her housemates follow along, both because they're going stir-crazy in Duck End and because they want to ensure Edwina stays out of trouble. Shortly after the group arrive at their hotel, Agnes notices two strange figures near the cliffs at the edge of the property. She looks away for a moment, and when she turns back, one of them has disappeared from sight. Though she's worried someone may have been pushed to their death, Agnes follows her friends' advice and puts the episode out of her mind. Then a storm isolates the group in Cornwall, more bodies start piling up, and Agnes's cohort once again transform into intrepid gumshoes. The familiar setup produces entertaining results, with the highlight being Swann's lively, well-rounded cast of senior sleuths. For cozy readers, this series hits all the right notes. Agent: Astrid Poppenhusen, Poppenhusen Agency. (Sept.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Swann's sequel to The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp has Agnes and her quirky octogenarian housemates investigating murders far from home. It's wintertime, and Agnes, Charlie, Marshall, Winston, Bernadette, and Edwina are unhappy about a broken boiler at Sunset Hall. Furthermore, Agnes has found another dead body in their small community and chosen not to tell anyone about it. When Edwina wins a romantic getaway for two to an exclusive coastal hotel in Cornwall, the rest of the group decide to go with her. Not long after their arrival, Agnes sees two hooded figures walk away from the hotel along the cliffs, but only one returns. She worries that she has just witnessed a murder, but no one wants to believe her. When more bodies pile up, and the hotel is cut off from the outside world by a storm, Agnes and the Sunset Hall residents (with the help of a boa constrictor) must stop a murderer before one of them is next. There is secondary-character development in this humorous follow-up, and a romantic subplot adds to the story. VERDICT Recommended for fans of Richard Osman, Robert Thorogood, and Laurien Berenson's "Senior Sleuth" series.--Jean King
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
The group of retirees collected by Agnes Sharp at Sunset Hall head for an even more dangerous destination. When Edwina Singh wins a vacation to the Eden, a luxury eco-hotel in Cornwall, the housemate she chooses to accompany her is Lillith, whose ashes have been packed in a tin ever since her murder. Stung by this rejection, Agnes announces that Charlie, Winston, Bernadette, and Marshall will all book rooms at the Eden, even if they can only afford it if they double up. Bernadette's snoring, it turns out, is the least of their problems. Agnes is one of four witnesses to what looks like a fatal plunge from a scenic, distant hill. Although no one reports finding a dead body, the glimpses of corpses--"The Yellow Hood," "The Man Behind the Scenes," "The Wet Woman"--keep piling up after a convenient storm cuts off the posh resort from the less civilized but more law-abiding world beyond. It's not until "The Bookworm" is confirmed dead by the discovery of the victim's actual remains that the quest begins to identify the rumored victims with the roster of guests and staffers at the Eden. The (eventually) high body count of utterly forgettable victims is leavened by the relentlessly facetious tone with which Swann presents both the Sunset Hall group's characteristic foibles and the sporadic and often uncoordinated attempts Agnes and the others make at detection. Television fans may think ofThe White Lotus with an all-senior cast, a laugh track, and a shower of exclamation points inside and outside the dialogue. The protagonist concludes, "If you thought about it, it really had been a very special holiday indeed." Agreed. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
