Review: 'Death in Sunset Grove' by Minna Lindgren

 

Title: Death in Sunset Grove

Author: Minna Lindgren

Book: The Lavender Ladies Detective-Agency #1

Publisher: PanMacmillan

Year: 2016

Pages: 384

IBSN-13: 978-1-4472-8932-6

Price: 8.07€ paperback (Amazon)

Mark: 9/10

SYNOPSIS

Meet Siiri and Irma, best friends and the queen bees of Sunset Grove, a retirement community for those still young at heart. With a combined age of nearly 180, Siiri and Irma are still just as inquisitive and witty as when they first met decades ago.

But when their comfortable world is upturned by a suspicious death at Sunset Grove, Siiri and Irma are shocked into doing something about it. Determined to find out exactly what happened and why, they begin their own private investigations and form The Lavender Ladies Detective Agency.

The trouble is, beneath Sunset Grove's calm facade, there is more going on than meets the eye, and Siiri and Irma soon discover far more than they bargained for . . .

PERSONAL ASSESSMENT

JUSTIFICATION

Well, I didn’t know about Minna Lindgren or The Lavender Ladies Detective-Agency until I was looking for a book written by a Finnish writer in Helsinki (I’ll explain it in the next review). Therefore, I bought the second book (my next review). So, immediately, I have just read a few pages and I totally fell in love with the Lavender Ladies and I felt that I HAVE TO buy the first book (the third and last is not published yet in English), I needed to read it, and it just confirm my love for these ladies.

PLOT

The quiet residence of Sunset Grove is suddenly stirred by the death of the cook and the “vanishing” of Pasi, a social worker. The adorable granny, Siiri, and her lifelong friend Irma are determined to discover what had happened. They meet Mika, a friend of Tero, the cook, who will help them to resolve the mystery. But that mystery does not only involve the death of Tero nor the vanishing of Pasi, as suddenly Irma is considered demented and is shut in the Group Home. Siiri knows that Irma is not really demented and suspects that that is caused by the rising number of pills they must take. This is all schemed by the married couple of caretakers: Virpi and Erkki Hiukkanen. This story involves mysteries, conspiracies, a fire and even a visit to the wrong funeral!

CHARACTERS

As I will make reviews of the three books, I will talk about two of the main characters:

• Siiri: She is the main character, an adorable granny whose sons and husband died, and her daughter is somewhere in a convent. She sooo lovable that everytime you feel the urge to hug her. Even though she has about ninety-some years old, she is completely lucid and fresh-minded. But sometimes she forgets some things or get lost (I think is due to the medication). She is also very clever and curious, and she won’t stop until she finds out what it is happening at Sunset Grove.
• Anna-Liisa: She is one of the grannies that make the trio (although there is a clear main character). As Irma is shut in the Group Home, she becomes the partner in crime of Siiri. She helps her to find out and investigate what it is happening. She is a Master of Arts and Finnish professor, and she always take every opportunity to teach us something about the Finnish language (for example, about the compound nouns).

ATMOSPHERE

As I will say in the next review (I made first the review of the second book and then this), I lived in Finland, so I know almost every street, what the trams are like…

When you read this book, you feel the mystery and you are desiring to find out what has happened and how it is all solved. You can see yourself as a Finn spectator in Helsinki.

WRITING STYLE

This is more a Scandinavian novel than the second book, as the story’s timeline follows a series of mysteries and its resolutions. Besides, it is also humorous (Finnish humour), a sort of dark humour that just them and people who know the Finnish culture can truly understand -that does not mean that you cannot enjoy the book-.

GENERAL COMMENT

I love it! I enjoyed it more than the second book, maybe it is because I read first the second and there were some things that I could not understand. And now that I have read the first book I fully understand. When I read this book, I understand why they call Siiri the “Finnish Miss Marple”, as she is a kind of detective. The funniest part of the book is, for me, when they find out that they assisted the wrong funeral. Although it is sold as a whodunit, the social criticism about how we treat the elders is there, and it is maybe the most important reading of the book.

-Saru