Retirement Can Be Murder

Labeled as a "baby-boomer" mystery this is a fun new series written by Susan  Santangelo.  Written from the point of view of a woman who has just launched her two children and thinks she has gotten her days and the house to herself , she about to confront not only a boomerang child, but a husband contemplating retirement.

Carol Andrews has the group of girl friends I a have always dreamed of.  I guess the advantage of writing the story is that's you can create the perfect situation with long time friendships and a strong girlfriend support group.  Married couples that are also long time friends.  When her husband, Jim is in the wrong pla at the wrong time and finds a dead body, Carol and her friends are able to start investigating the crime.

This is novel where I enjoyed the writing style even reading carefully the quotes used at the heading of each chapter. Each chapter had a quote about marriage, retirement or men...for example:
"Q: What’s the biggest advantage of going back to school as a retiree? A: If you cut classes, no one calls your parents." And , Q: How do you keep your husband from reading your e-mail? A: Rename your mail folder “Living With Menopause.”. Each one more clever than the last. These quotes had me laughing. Ia also found myself really relating to some of the dialog and feelings of Carol, our new sleuth and her family.  She was fairly realistic in her feelings about her husband and marriage, loving her husband but also being frustrated sometimes.   She also was happy to have her daughter living with her again, but also wanted her to find a place of her own for the long term.  That reflects a real view of life.

Author Satangelo, also tries to not get to cute with the detective side of this novel.  Trying to make it a bit more realistic she points out that Carol is a mystery reader, and real life does not always fit into a neat package, though this is actually hard to do in a cozy mystery novel.  Carol's dialog reflects that idea at pint when Carol says, "I was beginning to realize how little a real life murder investigation resembled those books I’d read over the years. One would think that all that reading would have given me tips on investigating a crime, but sadly, it hadn’t. Where were my little gray cells when I needed them? They probably self-destructed due to hot flash overload."

So another fun, light mystery series begins...with an entertaining book for a lazy afternoon corked up reading with a good cup of coffee.  Since I am a baby boomer of a certain age I can relate to Carol and I will keep an eye out for more adventures about her and her husband Jim Andrews.