Mysteries with senior citizens are jumping out of the woodwork, and many of them are delightful. Add “Agnes Sharp and the Trip of a Lifetime” to that growing list. Author Leonie Swann does an excellent job balancing the third person narrative from the viewpoints of the many octogenarians and septuagenarians who live together at Sunset Hall in the tiny English hamlet of Duck End. Agnes, the title character, is a retired police officer, and while she is a bit scatterbrained, she also is good at happening across murder victims.

In the first chapter, she sees a dead body at the church, but she is determined not to deal with the mess and takes the bus home instead of reporting the death. She thinks that she will be free from more murder investigations (this is a sequel to the murder mystery “The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp”), but when one of the housemates, Edwina, wins a trip to the coast, things change. It’s winter in England, and their home’s boiler is broken. The residents are tired of freezing rooms and wearing coats indoors, and so they all decide to go to the resort with Edwina.

Once at the resort, Agnes thinks she sees a murder happen. She sees two raincoat-clad people head up the path on a cliff, but only one returns. What happened to the other person? After she ascertains that there is no other way off the path, she begins to investigate. And the dead bodies begin to pile up. When a ferocious storm washes the cliffside road into the sea, everyone at the resort is isolated there with no phone, no internet, and no way out. It’s up to Agnes and her intrepid team of senior citizens to stop the murderer. But when they themselves become suspects, what can they do?

The narration is brilliant. Swann manages to infuse the action with humorous narrative and realistic problems that older people might encounter. Sometimes, it’s hard to get up off the floor. One of the group, Bernadette, is blind, yet she makes her way around the resort relatively easily. But she uncharacteristically becomes interested in what she is wearing and how she looks. What can the others make of that? We, of course, know that an old flame has appeared in her life.

Each of the many main characters is quite a unique individual, from the well-groomed Charlie with her penchant for liquor and looking chic, to Agnes, who has one hearing aid and a painful hip, and who occasionally gets confused. There is a helpful list of characters at the start of the book, and while at first readers might look at it to keep the various characters straight, soon that is unnecessary because of the capable writing and descriptions. The writing is wry and witty. Here is an example from the beginning: “Any conflict in the village had traditionally always been solved in a civil fashion. People had spread nasty rumours, shaved cats, hammered copper nails into neighbouring apple trees or, in a pinch, written poisonous anonymous letters to the village rag, but as a rule, murder was frowned upon.”

The plot is twisty, and while there are a few red herrings, the real culprit is not difficult to identify before the end of the book. The enjoyment isn’t necessarily in the unmasking of the murderer, but in the process of watching the group of elders plot, plan, and fumble as they strive to solve the mystery. And while they are working, we learn more about their backgrounds and the secrets they are hiding from each other. While I didn’t read the first installment in this series, I didn’t feel lost at all. And I will definitely be reading the next book in the series! I’m hooked on these clever, capable, and often cunning senior citizens.

For more great reads featuring main characters “of a certain age” you might check out “The Spy Coast” by Tess Gerritsen, “Killers of a Certain Age” by Deanna Rayborn, “Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge” by Spencer Quinn, and “Matterhorn” by Christopher Reich.

This review was first posted on Bookreporter.com.