The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp by Leonie Swann,
translated by Amy Bojang
The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman
Hercule Poirot’s Silent Night by Sophie Hannah

Tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson has recently become famous for spending $2 million a year on a bonkers anti-aging regimen, while the rest of us have to make do with a round of Wordle and a brisk walk. But for the elderly characters in The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp and The Last Devil to Die, nothing keeps the mental gears oiled like solving a tricky murder.

Richard Osman’s justly popular Thursday Murder Club books are the best-known of a spate of variations on this theme, including Robert Thorogood’s Marlow Murder Club series (coming soon to PBS), Deanna Raybourn’s Killers of a Certain Age, James Patterson’s Women’s Murder Club series, and Tess Gerritsen’s upcoming The Spy Coast. There are tweaks in each iteration, but basically they involve retirees with free time and expertise (many are former spies or police detectives) who band together to solve crimes the police can’t, while charmingly or irascibly embodying the quirks of each book’s particular demographic.