On the HahaFiction shelf

The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp

by Leonie Swann

Agnes Sharp · Book 1

The police turn up at Sunset Hall to tell Agnes Sharp and her housemates that their neighbor has been killed. The residents have a problem of their own: there’s already a body at Sunset Hall. If they can work out who killed the neighbor, they might be able to persuade the police that the same person is responsible for both deaths.

Mystery Amateur sleuth Cozy mystery Dark comedy

From the publisher’s blurb

“this twisty, darkly funny mystery”

Read the full description at Soho Crime

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What makes it funny?

Agnes’s first reaction to a police officer bringing news of a murder is relief. The housemates would ordinarily have enough trouble getting their reading glasses or the stairlift to cooperate. Now they need to arrange an investigation and a cover-up at the same time.

The comedy at work

The housemates want the truth about the death next door for the same reason they want to keep the truth about their own house quiet. A clue could do double duty if it helps them point the police away from Sunset Hall.

Try this if…

The small English village has the amateur sleuths of a cozy mystery, with a darker reason for nosing around. There’s also room for the ordinary frustrations of getting older in a house full of people with their own ways of doing things.