Book Review: Old Detectives Home by Mike Befeler

Old Detectives Home
Author: Mike Befeler
Series: An Omnipodge Mystery (Book 1)
Publication: Encircle Publications (April 27, 2022)

Description: Imagine a retirement home populated with residents such 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, and the top detectives of all time unite to solve their most difficult whodunit yet.

My Thoughts: 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. 

Favorite Quote:

"Ed Wilson was strangled with a towel, poisoned with cyanide, drenched in alcohol, thrown off a cliff, run over, stabbed in the chest, shot in the head, hit on the side of the head with a stapler, but most important is the ship."

I bought this one April 23, 2023. You can buy your copy here.