# Getting Old Is Murder

By Rita Lakin · Gladdy Gold, book 1

Profile: https://hahafiction.com/books/getting-old-is-murder-cbc854bf/

At 75, retired librarian Gladdy Gold has read plenty of mysteries. When neighbors in her Florida retirement community die in suspiciously similar circumstances, she turns that reading into an investigation. The police aren't persuaded, so her friends join the hunt for someone who may be targeting them.

## What makes it funny?

Gladdy introduces herself as a private eye whose main credential is thirty years of mystery reading. Then she struggles to remember Sue Grafton's name while describing the alphabet series. She knows exactly how her memory sounds and warns younger readers that their turn is coming.

### The comedy at work

Gladdy talks directly to the reader, interrupting her detective introduction with complaints about aging. The group has practical limits too: sore joints and an early bedtime complicate the work of catching a killer.

### Try this if…

Readers who like older amateur sleuths, a talkative narrator and Yiddish-inflected humor will find those pleasures here. The neighbors' routines and arguments get room alongside the crime-solving.

### Good to know

The jokes share the story with bereavement and the deaths of friends. There's also a neighbor who insists on telling dirty jokes, so the retirement-community setting doesn't mean the humor is entirely decorous.

## What to expect

- Genre: Crime & thriller · Mystery
- On the shelf: Amateur sleuth · Cozy mystery
- Kind of humor: Dry wit
- Format: Novel
- Length: 336 pages
- Published: 2005

## More in Gladdy Gold

- Book 2: Getting Old Is the Best Revenge

## A few distinguishing details

- A retired librarian appoints herself a private eye
- A suspected killer among the retirement-community neighbors

## Sources & further reading

- Publisher: [Penguin Random House lists Getting Old Is Murder by Rita Lakin as a 336-page mass market paperback, ISBN 9780440242581.](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/97264/getting-old-is-murder-by-rita-lakin/9780440242581)
- Reading sample: [Reading sample: chapters 1 and 2](https://www.ecampus.com/getting-old-murder-revised-lakin-rita/bk/9780440242581)
- Publisher: [Publisher: Gladdy Gold series order](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/A29/gladdy-gold)
- Review: [Review: Midwest Book Review](https://www.midwestbookreview.com/mbw/oct_05.htm)
- Publisher: [Publisher: description and edition](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/97264/getting-old-is-murder-by-rita-lakin/9780440242581)