After Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club, it seems that seniors are the hottest sleuths. It’s not very wise to underestimate them. It’s certainly not wise to assume that seventy-five-year-old Ethel Fiona Crestwater is a sweet little lady who runs a boardinghouse. It doesn’t take long for her double-first-cousin-twice-removed, Jesse Cooper, to learn otherwise in Mark de Castrique’s Secret Lives.

Jesse, a twenty-two-year-old grad student at American University, is skyping with his girlfriend in London when he hears gunfire. He shoots out of the house, and finds another one of Ethel’s boarders dead in the street. When Ethel hurries out, he’s not sure she’ll be able to take it when she sees Jonathan Finch dead. He’s shocked when she tells him to video the scene while she investigates. Then, Ethel calls one of her “boys”, Cory Bradshaw, the head of the Secret Service to tell him one of his agents is dead. When Detective Frank Mancini from the Arlington Police Department shows up, she doesn’t tell him she’s already moved a gym bag from Jonathan’s room to her basement. But, Frank once roomed in Ethel’s house, too. He suspects she’s hiding something.

It’s only after Ethel gives Jesse an assignment, and he’s accosted in the basement, that she tells him the truth. He already knew her boarders are FBI agents and Secret Service. But, Ethel herself was once an FBI agent. Her father worked for J. Edgar Hoover. And, she isn’t going to let someone get away with killing one of her boarders and stealing evidence on her watch. As much as she wants to trust Cory and Frank and others who once roomed at her place, now Ethel only trusts Jesse. Someone killed Jonathan, and she and her double-first-cousin-twice-removed are going to find his killer, and the reason for his death.

Ethel and Jesse are a delightful pair of sleuths. Ethel has all kinds of surprises for Jesse and the reader. She has surprising skills, but she can easily fall back on playing a failing elderly woman as well. The two are involved in a case with a complex background, but they both have knowledge that will guide them through the investigation.

I’ll admit I figured out who was involved in the murder earlier than the Secret Service, the FBI, and the police. And, it made it easier that Ethel knew almost all the players. But, would I have discovered the truth before Ethel Crestwater? Probably not. She’s a wise woman with a great deal of experience. She makes a delightful sleuth.

Mark de Castrique’s website is http://www.markdecastrique.com/

Secret Lives by Mark de Castrique. Poisoned Pen Press, 2022. ISBN 9781728258300 (paperback), 288p.

FTC Full Disclosure – I received a galley to review for a journal.