Nursing Homes Are Murder

March 3, 2014
In Befeler’s disappointing sixth Geezer-Lit mystery (after 2013’s Care Homes Are Murder), the local cops ask octogenarian Paul Jacobson to go undercover at the Pacific Vista Nursing Home in Honolulu, Hawaii, where female residents are being sexually assaulted late at night. They are also being robbed—and one woman winds up dead. The cops have several suspects in mind, including Hugh Talbert, the evening cleaning crew’s supervisor. Before the crime can be solved, however, the culprit goes after Paul’s wife, Marion. The supporting cast—Paul’s fetching wife; his granddaughter, Jennifer, ever eager to assist him in his sleuthing; and his blind roommate at Pacific Vista—are companionable, and Befeler’s frankness about Paul and Marion’s sex life is refreshing. But Paul’s corny jokes grow old, and the repeated discussion of his short-term memory loss (and the diary he uses to outwit it) becomes tiresome. Suspense proves lacking, and the mystery’s solution seems to come out of nowhere.

February 15, 2014
An octogenarian sleuth strikes again. Even though his near-photographic memory of each day utterly vanishes by the next morning, Paul Jacobson has been confoundingly successful in helping the police solve crimes (Care Homes Are Murder, 2013, etc.). Paul's new wife, Marion, has an idea she hopes will, in turn, help him: She encourages him to write up each day in a diary he can read the next morning. Thus fortified, Paul and his bride are about to leave Honolulu, where they've been vacationing with his son, Denny, his daughter-in-law, Allison, and his granddaughter, Jennifer, when Detective Chun asks Paul if he'll go undercover in the Pacific Vista Nursing Home--where Linda Rodriguez has recently been raped. Marion stays in a nearby condo while Paul checks in and meets his new roommate, Ralph Hirata, a blind war hero of Japanese descent. Paul soon discovers that there are a lot of wacky characters living at the Pacific Vista, but the three men who are closest to the victim's description of a medium-sized white man with a mustache and beard all appear innocent. Then Mrs. Rodriguez is murdered, and another woman is raped. Paul's snooping seems to have alerted the killer, who makes increasingly violent attempts to deter him. With a little help from Ralph, whose hearing almost makes up for his lack of sight, Paul finally figures out whodunit. Befeler supplies the customary cast of eccentric senior citizens, the usual surfeit of geezer jokes and enough suspects to keep you guessing, especially if you forget them all when you go to sleep each night.

COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

May 1, 2014

Sexual assaults in a Honolulu nursing home are no joke, and Paul and Marion go undercover to find the perp. Welcome back the king of geezer lit with his sixth cozy (after Care Homes Are Murder) featuring Paul Jacobson, the sleuth with short-term memory loss.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.