Leonie Swann’s The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp is a fresh take on the cosy crime genre perfect for fans of Richard Osman and Robert Thorogood.

Agnes Sharp runs Sunset Hall, a house-share for the old and unruly that is not your typical nursing home. The residents all have secrets of their own which they’ve gone to great lengths to keep hidden – so they are not exactly thrilled when the police knock on the door of the hall and announce that a dead body has been discovered next door. Initial panic quickly gives way to relief when it transpires that the body in question is not the one that they have been hiding in their shed!

With a murderer at large, the residents realise that this could be the break they had been waiting for. All they have to do is find out who is responsible for their recently deceased neighbour and pin the blame on them for the dead body in their shed! It’s a gift from the gods that seems to have fallen in their laps, but as they turn detective, the residents of Sunset Hall quickly realise that they before they can unmask a killer, they need to first contend with stair lifts, hopeless criminals and their own dark and twisted secrets…

Leonie Swann’s The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp is absolutely delightful! Having read a lot of cosy crime novels, I thoroughly enjoyed this quirky, witty and unusual page-turner that kept me reading way past my bedtime. I was completely hooked by the antics of the residents of Sunset Hall and found myself racing to the end of this book as I simply did not want to put it down.

Fun, twisted, charming and completely engaging, mystery fans will be completely bowled over by Leonie Swann’s The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp.

This book is a delight!
It begins from the point of view of a tortoise and ends with a murderer unmasked
We see the world through the eyes of Agnes Sharp who has established a haven for elderly people who want to be free. But old people are dying, Agnes and her cronies cannot move fast and are really not sure whether they would remember if they had shot a person but helped by a hapless internet engineer and a grandchild they manage to investigate the crime, even if they have to kidnap a police officer to do it.
An absolute joy.

I found this book really hard to read. It was so confusing. It's told by an elderly lady who's thought process gets muddled up. Unfortunately this leads to the writing style being very muddled and confusing.

It was very hard to keep track of all the characters and storyline. I read one review that said it was like jumping into the middle of a series without reading the previous books and I totally agree!

It got interesting towards the end of the book but for me it was too little too late.

This was a really lovely read. It was fun and the perfect cozy crime to get stuck into at the start of the cozy season.

I did find the pace a little slow in places, and although it is a murder mystery this felt very character driven to the point that the crime was almost a secondary plot.

Agnes and her gang are an eclectic bunch and all the more loveable for it, especially Hettie the tortoise. Agnes is the centre of the story and is therefore the chief narrator but I would have enjoyed getting more of the other characters points of view.

I believe this is a series and I will definitely be picking up the sequel to see what Agnes, Edwina, Hettie and co. get up to next! It would be great to get some detail on the other characters back stories too.

If you enjoy cozy crime, reading this is a no brainer - you’ll definitely enjoy the time you spend at Sunset Hall.

Disclaimer - I absolutely loved this book!
On the surface it’s the story of a series of mysterious deaths; all elderly people and all shot with the same gun. There’s an eccentric and loveable group of elderly characters, all fighting the inevitable tide of old age, along with Sparrow - stair lift engineer and amateur burglar, a tortoise named Hetty and Brexit the dog. Dig a little deeper and it’s a beautiful story of the later stages of life. Reconciling the inner child with the aged body is one element but there’s also the struggle to assimilate a changing world. Then there’s the failing memory particularly the loss of short term and resurgence of much longer term memories which would be better left forgotten.

What a wonderful crime mystery that's relaxing and thought provoking. It was a little hard to jump around the mystery but that did not take anything away from the storyline. Loved the characters but definitely preferred the animals. A great read. I will definitely be looking for more mysteries from this author

This is the best cozy mystery! I adore this geriatric sleuth tribe!! I will buy every book that comes out in this series. Not only are the characters great but it is well written and the mystery was perfectly thought out. I had a great time reading this book and I can't stop thinking of it!! 6 stars if I could!
I just reviewed The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp by Leonie Swann. #TheSunsetYearsofAgnesSharp #NetGalley
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I found the book a little hard to get into but then did enjoy it. It was confusing at times but did want to find out how it all ended.

I liked the opening from the tortoise’s point of view and there was a decent cast of characters. The book is clearly aimed at fans of Richard Osman although I didn’t get the same sense of the different personalities. I also found the switches between different perspectives a bit confusing since there was nothing to mark them - I often had to reread sections to check where the scene had shifted to.
I was underwhelmed by the plot twist as it was a bit too melodramatic for my taste. I also felt there were quite a few loose ends which weren’t fully tied up which was unsatisfying.

3.5 stars

I really enjoyed getting to know Agnes - Sharp by name, she had that sharp wit and intelligence I always appreciate in a main character. The reasons for the residents being at Sunset Hall aren’t clear at first, but as we find out more about them and their little foibles, it becomes a intriguing tale. Twists and turns keep the pages turning as we follow Agnes and the gang on the mystery surrounding their neighbour. A fun, lighthearted read.

The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp is indeed a cosy mystery featuring quirky elderly characters solving a crime. It's being marketed as 'for fans of Richard Osman', so let's compare the two.

Osman's books are clever and very funny, and just because the characters are elderly doesn't mean they are not intelligent and often highly functional, albeit suject to the usual physical downsides of ageing. I can see myself and my friends in Osman's characters; real people who just happen to be getting on a bit. People who support each other and who would rather rely on their peers than on their families. Not silly and laughable. There are a lot of [excellent] jokes and situational humour in Osman's books, but the people aren't a joke simply because they're old.

Leonie Swann's characters are portrayed in the usual clichéd manner as being doddery, unreliable and rather stupid old people, for the most part. In fact, they are all muddled, not just occasionally but most of the time. OK, I'm not saying that they are not true to life in many ways... But I don't like that they are held up as figures of fun.

In short, I felt that Swann's portrayal of old people is ageist. Osman's isn't. As an older person, I'd rather read about characters I can identify with rather than read unflattering portraits of what some younger person perceives older/elderly people to be.

Other than that, sure, it's a decent story and an entertaining read. Maybe a 3-star novel if this sort of ageism doesn't bother you. It bothers me.

I really found it difficult to get into this novel. Despite persevering I could not finish but I know it will be popular - just not for me

The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp is a nice, kinda bloody but still cozy mystery, in which we follow Agnes and her retired housemates as they try to solve the case of a serial killer, who started murdering elderly people around town. I guess the whole idea is fairly similar to The Thursday Murder Club - our main characters are old, (trying to be) funny, nosy and aren't afraid to use their age as an excuse when they're in trouble with the authorities. I have to admit, I love The Thursday Murder Club, so, in theory, a similar story should have been a hit for me - but it wasn't. Even though I liked the plot twist at the end, and I really liked the prose of the text - without having read the original German version, I think the translator did an amazing job. I also liked that we had sections from a tortoise's point of view, and I really loved Brexit - probably the dog was my favorite character, by far, in the entire book. And I think that's where my problem lies - I couldn't connect with any of the characters (honestly, I found Agnes brutally annoying), which concluded in me not caring for the story. I was seriously considering a DNF at 20% because I just couldn't care less - the only reason that kept me going was the fact that it was an eARC, kindly provided by the publisher. In the end I'm kind of glad that I pushed through... but it wasn't my favorite read of the season.

I am one of few people who didn't enjoy Richard Osman's Thursday Murder Club, which was a DNF for me, and I am sorry to say, this book did nothing for me either. DNF

A cosy murder mystery involving bumbling police officers, a group of elderly people - a couple of whom just happen to have a background in the force, a dog called Brexit and a tortoise called Hettie.
It is an easy reading book, the characters are well drawn what lets it down is that when the characters become confused so does the writing.

This was an amusing autumnal weekend read. It was ever so slightly chaotic but I didn't enjoy it any less because of that. I love the Richard Osman series so knew I would enjoy this, brilliant debut!

Sunset Hall home to a group of elderly people all with a bit of a history. Agnes the ring leader probe to mislaying her false teeth and off her medication.
Working together to solve a murder and conceal one of their own.

With a visiting Grandson, Hettie the tortoise and Brexit the dog to help. Think Thursday Murder Club, but with more senility and less mobility.

I was hoping to enjoy this more than I did, being rather fed up of the patronising tone of other cosy murder mysteries involving older people.
And, indeed, the basic premise is very sound: the pensioners live together and cover for each other's deficiencies, rather than go into old folks' homes. They also, with some experience in the defence and secret services, have a back-up plan for when it is no longer feasible to carry on. When this plan intersects with the murder of a neighbour, things get a bit complicated.
So far, so good. The mystery is quite a good one, and there are the obligatory red herrings and side-tracks to keep the reader thrown off the scent. However, verisimilitude was taken too far, I felt, when the main protagonist was trying to communicate vital information to one of her housemates and couldn't hear him because of a violent ringing in her ears. Instead of e.g. telling him she couldn't hear, or writing down her urgent point, she just nodded along, then left telling him until the next day. There were several episodes like this throughout the book; certainly it made the cognitive breakdown as we get older more understandable, but perhaps too much so. I felt rather in need of medication myself before I was finished and, worse still, it felt like a ploy to stretch out a thin plot.
The author was really let down by the translator, as the style was very awkward and jarring - apart from one very amusing maxim: seemingly, in German, if you're ready to cash in your chips and finish your life, it's called "sticking your spoon in the wall". My imagination has been running with that one for some time!
Overall, this was an interesting read, but the style was very clunky, so it did not make for the antidote that I had hoped to other, more saccharine, mysteries. A good edit, and a better translator, would solve most of its problems, however, and I can still see it being quite popular.
My thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

This had the feeling of being part of a series that has previous books that you haven’t read. It isn’t, it was a slightly chaotic start that gave this impression I think. It’s another entrant in the OAP detective genre with the pensioners being a collective in a home owned by the eponymous Agnes. This comes in handy for hiding bodies or even policemen. I feel this would make a better film or tv programme than book.

This was a fun read, with lots of twists and turns, and vibrant characters.

Agnes runs a house where retired people can live as a community rather than going to the local retirement home. However, it all gets a little tricky when there is one death at the house and then two other murders within the small village.

Agnes and her friends decide to investigate the murders getting into all sorts of trouble along the way.

There were a couple of twists which sadly I have read in other books recently (The Only One Left by Riley Sagar and The House on the Lake by Holly Hill Mangin) so they weren't as surprising as they could have been.

Hettie the tortoise was a fun addition too.