This omnibus comprises the first three novellas in E J Lamprey's Grasshopper Lawns cozy mystery series. The stories are set in a "retirement" village near Edinburgh. Yes, the residents of the village are in their mid-50s and older, but they are retired only in the sense that they don't drive to a job every day. The premise of the village, set up by a wealthy benefactor, is that each resident be financially stable, in good health, and, the most important factor for the stories that they be "interesting." Interesting indeed they are. There are folk who have been opera singers, science-fiction authors, actor/ choreographers, spies and private detectives. They most assuredly are not sitting in their rockers tapping their feet to big-band music, and reminiscing about those good old days when TVs were small and transmitted only black-and-white pictures. Rather, they are comfortable with and readily use
iPads and MP3s, are very cosmopolitan and can enjoy dating one another. The main group in the stories are two men and two women, who becme involved in solving a murder, and proceed from one story to the next, deepening their relationships , frequently through the course of solving more murders. Their characters are not caricatures, but realistic people with virtues and foibles, who become close friends, looking out for one another over the course of the three stories here.
The plots are well-constructed and airtight, no authorial cheating, and serve well all the sturctures of cozy mysteries. Given the brevity of the novellas, there is a heady mixture of suspects, clues, motives and leads. These are no armchair detectives. They poke about the environs of Edinburgh (whose geography is well-represented) when required, and Lamprey delivers very adept side-glances at their ongoing lives and interests when they're not not solving mysteries.The murders are not simple, but Lamprey is excellent at laying out what is known and unknown at every step, and the reader never feels either bored or cheated.
Finally , Lamprey is an excellent stylist, building on a base of clear exposition , well-leavened with good insights about details of the residents' crafts in their former occupations, and wise, well-written observations on human behavior exhibited by people of any age.
Highly recommended for devotees of classic murder mysteries, especially those set firmly in modern times.
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