The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp by Leonie Swann

This book opens from the view of the house turtle. Someone is dead. Well, at least their toes are pointing up and no lettuce is being proffered.

We then move to third person omniscient with Agnes Sharp. There is just a little too much going on in Agnes's world on the day the book opens. Lilith is dead but they do not want the police; the police come anyway. And their news makes it advantageous to let them know about Lilith. Plus, the new lodger, Charlie, is moving in. 

We know from the beginning that Agnes is an unreliable narrator. She has a loud ringing in her ears and she can't hear during those times. Then there are the moments that she is pulled back into the past. And we actively read her thinking about deceiving the police and refusing to think of bad memories.

There are some other glimpses into other characters, especially Marshall who seems to have some memory issues though he also seems to know the identity of the killer. 

I'm assuming this is going to be set up as a series since we have many hints of each of the characters having pasts in various parts of law enforcement. Plus, we haven't learned nearly enough about new lodger Charlie and her handsome grandson. 

Four stars

This book comes out August 29, 2023

ARC kindly provided by Penguin Random House and Edelweiss

Opinions are my own

The Body under the Piano by Marthe Jocelyn

What happened if Agatha Christie grew up to be such a prolific writer because she solved mysteries as a girl? And what if she had a friend that was the prototype for Hercule Poirot? And a grandmother who strongly resembles Miss Jane Marple? You would get this series about Aggie Morton.
Aggie is sort of like Harriet the Spy but more focused on writing poetry than on spying on other people. She is supposed to be a part of a local fete welcoming refugees but she freezes and is saved by Rose. Rose is a beautiful local seventeen-year-old whose aunt is the local dance teacher and an all-around nice lady. Her mother, on the other hand, is known as being vituperative and mean. No surprise who ends up dead then. Aggie is the one to discover the body and becomes very curious, trying to solve the case with new friend Hector.
This book was a little too long but I think would be great for a reader who is ready for some more challenging material; the murder is off-screen (as it were) but the language is a bit higher than a lot of the middle-grade books I've read.

Four stars
This book comes out February 4th
ARC kindly provided by Penguin Random House and NetGalley
Opinions are my own