Judith Sullivan is a writer in London, originally from Baltimore. She is working on a crime series set in Paris. Fluent in French, she’s pretty good with English and has conversational Italian and German and 20+ years in Leeds improved her Yorkshire speak.
As possibly the only crime enthusiast in the UK not to have visited the Thursday Murder Club, this one was an anomaly for me.
Not an unpleasant novelty but not my usual cup of tea sipped with dapper senior friends in a proper English garden. It is, of course, not Thursday. The hook here is that novelist Swann is actually German and this oh-so-British caper has been translated (wittily by Amy Bojang).
Call it Agatha Christie meets the Saga catalogue, if you will. Trip takes a septet of octogenarian flatmates and friends on a trip which, you will have guessed, is not exactly the swansong holiday most of us would wish for.
The Jessica Fletcher of the Sunset Hall bunch is Agnes Sharp, a onetime police officer and star of two previous books by Swann.
The action kicks off when one member of the Sunset Hall group wins a trip to a very P.D. James setting, the pricey Eden Hotel and spa on the Cornish coast. All seven dwarves pack up for the holiday, accompanied by the ashes of the deceased member of the gang, one Lilith.
The name on the urn is not the only Biblical reference. There is a character called Eve and a snake and yep, you guessed, a not-so-sanitary apple.
The plot is blink-and-you-miss-something pacey. Bodies swiftly pile up, Agnes and co repeatedly skirt the killer and the Eden’s TripAdvisor ratings are increasingly in jeopardy.
Key to the shenanigans is one White Widow, whose husband fell (or was he pushed) to his death from the nearby cliffs. The comings and goings are many and the finger pointing frequent. I counted at least three victims but there may have been more.
The fun in this one is not so much the whodunnit question but the comedic to-ing and fro-ing of our silver-haired sleuths (one blind, one in a wheelchair). Swann has an eye for the set-piece, a few involving the serpent Oberon. I particularly enjoyed the bit where the not-yet-murdered guests arm themselves against the mad killer – with butter knives, the only available cutlery. Another good one is when a guest spills ice cream on his sleeve and Agnes notices the milky gloop has blood in it.
Like any heir to Hercule Poirot, Agnes occasionally muses on the banality of evil. She quips that murder motives are usually banal, linked to greed or fear or jealousy. Regardless, the taking of human life bothers the ex-copper and I have a funny feeling more capers are in the offing.
