On the HahaFiction shelf
Getting Old Is Murder
Gladdy Gold · Book 1 · 2005
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.
From the publisher’s blurb
“She’s not Miss Marple. Her friends are no Charlie’s Angels.”Read the full description at Dell / Penguin Random House
Paid link · We earn commissions from qualifying Amazon purchases. Affiliate disclosure
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.
Keep reading
More in Gladdy Gold
The series continues with one more book on our shelf.
Book 2Getting Old Is the Best Revenge
Paid links · We earn commissions from qualifying Amazon purchases. Affiliate disclosure
A few distinguishing details
- A retired librarian appoints herself a private eye
- A suspected killer among the retirement-community neighbors
More funny amateur sleuth
Sources & further reading
Something we should correct? Let us know.