Agnes Sharp and the Trip of a Lifetime

Swann’s sequel to The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp has Agnes and her quirky octogenarian housemates investigating murders far from home. It’s wintertime, and Agnes, Charlie, Marshall, Winston, Bernadette, and Edwina are unhappy about a broken boiler at Sunset Hall. Furthermore, Agnes has found another dead body in their small community and chosen not to tell anyone about it. When Edwina wins a romantic getaway for two to an exclusive coastal hotel in Cornwall, the rest of the group decide to go with her. Not long after their arrival, Agnes sees two hooded figures walk away from the hotel along the cliffs, but only one returns. She worries that she has just witnessed a murder, but no one wants to believe her. When more bodies pile up, and the hotel is cut off from the outside world by a storm, Agnes and the Sunset Hall residents (with the help of a boa constrictor) must stop a murderer before one of them is next. There is secondary-character development in this humorous follow-up, and a romantic subplot adds to the story.