One should read this
book with one’s tongue firmly in one’s cheek.
It’s a dark comedy with several rather improbable scenarios being played
out – but it’s a laugh. (Review by Fiona de Goede)
Too
Old for This is the fifth offering by Samantha Downing – her debut
novel, My Lovely Wife, was a Sunday
Times bestseller and published in thirty languages. It also won several
rewards, including The CWA John Creasy Dagger.
Lottie Jones has several skeletons in her closet. And there’s a journalist wanting to expose her deepest, darkest most tucked-away secrets. Lottie will have to rely on all her tricks up her sleeve to stymie this investigation and to continue to live her unassuming, relatively boring life.
The highlight of her week is bingo at the local church and meeting up with her friends for a good old chinwag. She can feel old age creeping up on her and realises it’s time to start thinking about moving into a retirement home – her only son is getting married for the second time, his young pregnant wife-to-be is not giving any indication that Lottie will feature in their lives any time soon.
So, when Plum Dixon, the journalist who approaches her for a tell-all expose of her past knocks at her door, Lottie has to brush off her rusty skills and get rid of Plum. The murders that have never been solved and which she was implicated in, need to stay firmly in the past. Therefore, without further ado, Lottie does the deed and Plum is no more.
Naturally, things do not end there. Lottie has to take drastic action to dispose of the body, one thing leads to another and before she knows what hit her, she is immersed in a life of crime. Various people connected to Plum start asking questions and the evasive action Lottie has to take to shake them off her tracks, leads her further and further into deception and darkness.
Too Old for This is published by Penguin Random House: ISBN 978-0-241-44693-5
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