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Old Detectives Home
Mike Befeler has done it again. Fans of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie, and more, hold on to your rockers! At the Old Detectives Home, the top detectives of all time must unite to solve their most difficult whodunit yet-without killing each other, of course.
Imagine a retirement home populated with such residents as an aging Hercule Poirot and a dementia-suffering Sherlock Holmes, and run by staff including Art Doyle, Dash Hammett, and Dot Sayers. In this light-hearted spoof of the mystery genre, every character is either a real person from the mystery writing world or a character from a mystery novel. On anything but a dark and stormy night, a dead body is found. The staff managers find themselves unable to control the unruly old detectives. Mix in clues and red herrings galore as this colorful cast of suspects investigate each other to solve the mystery of who done it.
Imagine a retirement home populated with such residents as an aging Hercule Poirot and a dementia-suffering Sherlock Holmes, and run by staff including Art Doyle, Dash Hammett, and Dot Sayers. In this light-hearted spoof of the mystery genre, every character is either a real person from the mystery writing world or a character from a mystery novel. On anything but a dark and stormy night, a dead body is found. The staff managers find themselves unable to control the unruly old detectives. Mix in clues and red herrings galore as this colorful cast of suspects investigate each other to solve the mystery of who done it.
- GenresMysteryCozy Mystery
270 pages, Paperback
Published April 27, 2022
11 people are currently reading
43 people want to read
About the author
Mike Befeler
26 books58 followersMike Befeler writes the humorous Paul Jacobson "Geezer Lit" mystery series featuring an ocotgenarian protagonist with short-term memory loss. The series includes: Retirement Homes Are Murder, Living With Your Kids Is Murder, Senior Moments Are Murder, Cruising in Your Eighties Is Murder, Care Homes Are Murder and Nursing Homes Are Murder. His other books include Unstuff Your Stuff, Death of a Scam Artist, The Tesla Legacy, The Best Chicken Thief in All of Europe, Court Trouble, Murder on the Switzerland Trail, Mystery of the Dinner Playhouse, The V V Agency, The Back Wing, The Front Wing, Paradise Cort, Coronavirus Daze, and Old Detectives Home. Mike retired from the computer data storage industry to write full time. He's past president of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Mystery Writers of America.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 10, 2023
Hilarious: Calling all Lovers of the Early Classic Mysteries
Mike Befeler has created a laugh-out-loud story of famous detectives from the classic mystery genre—Hercule Poirot, Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, and more—attempting to solve a murder that has occurred at their retirement home run by Agatha (Christie) Mallowan, Egar Allen Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, and other well-known authors.
Befeler has captured the uniqueness of each of the characters as they were originally written. I found myself laughing at the egocentric Poirot—his idiosyncrasies, his mustache, his little grey cells—as he spars with Auguste Dupin challenging his Belgian vs. French intellect. The book is filled with puns, references to the characters’ original stories, and inside jokes.
This was a fun weekend read. If you enjoyed the detectives, both professional and busybody amateur neighbors of yesteryear, you would enjoy this book.
Mike Befeler has created a laugh-out-loud story of famous detectives from the classic mystery genre—Hercule Poirot, Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, and more—attempting to solve a murder that has occurred at their retirement home run by Agatha (Christie) Mallowan, Egar Allen Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, and other well-known authors.
Befeler has captured the uniqueness of each of the characters as they were originally written. I found myself laughing at the egocentric Poirot—his idiosyncrasies, his mustache, his little grey cells—as he spars with Auguste Dupin challenging his Belgian vs. French intellect. The book is filled with puns, references to the characters’ original stories, and inside jokes.
This was a fun weekend read. If you enjoyed the detectives, both professional and busybody amateur neighbors of yesteryear, you would enjoy this book.
September 2, 2024
This one was a fun homage to the classic mystery genre. It is a retirement home populated by detectives from Golden Age fiction and staffed by some of the authors.
This was a fun story that introduced me to a number of detectives that I haven't read and let me visit old friends too. The story was filled with red herrings.
It begins when Tommy and Tuppence Beresford along with Sherlock Holmes discover the body of Ed Wilson on the beach. Wilson had been hired to help various residents and staff members write their memoirs. His overly critical approach didn't win him any friends. Certainly, everyone on the staff had motives to want him dead.
Wilson was very thoroughly dead, having been killed by a number of methods. Detective James Moriarty from the Omnipodge Police Department has quite an intriguing case to solve and more than enough help from the retirees who are busy investigating themselves.
This was a fun story that introduced me to a number of detectives that I haven't read and let me visit old friends too. The story was filled with red herrings.
It begins when Tommy and Tuppence Beresford along with Sherlock Holmes discover the body of Ed Wilson on the beach. Wilson had been hired to help various residents and staff members write their memoirs. His overly critical approach didn't win him any friends. Certainly, everyone on the staff had motives to want him dead.
Wilson was very thoroughly dead, having been killed by a number of methods. Detective James Moriarty from the Omnipodge Police Department has quite an intriguing case to solve and more than enough help from the retirees who are busy investigating themselves.
July 12, 2022
I didn’t care that the murderer in Old Detectives Home was impossible to discover. The trip to the solution was a romp with famous sleuths, famous authors, and other characters who weren’t always famous to me. I loved that the dead man was Ed Wilson, because I knew his work from back in the days when I was a graduate student. Befeler sends him and his disdain for detective fiction to the grave. “Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?” indeed. Befeler gets to kill the writer of the essay. All in good fun, of course.
My favorite sleuths: Poirot and Agatha. Befeler has a finely-tuned ear for his characterizations.
A treat to laugh during these days of turmoil.
Want to read
August 8, 2022[led here by Mystery Ink Bookstore]
February 28, 2023
Clever and humorous. I certainly did not guess the murderer's identity but was happy with the detective who solved the case.
January 1, 2025
A fun romp with a host of mystery writers of the past.
April 13, 2025
Clever concept. Sherlock has dementia. Didn’t figure out who done it. Probably 3.5
July 22, 2023
Old Detectives Home
I've read all but 3 of Mike Befeler books and they are great. Can't wait yo read more about the The Old Detctive Home books.
I've read all but 3 of Mike Befeler books and they are great. Can't wait yo read more about the The Old Detctive Home books.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews