Review: LIVING WITH YOUR KIDS IS MURDER, Mike Befeler

This book, #2 in the Paul Jacobsen Geezer-Lit Mystery series, is the first book I've completed reading on my new Kindle. I noticed also that this book is available as an audio from Audible.

Finding that it was available on Kindle was great because the paper versions don't appear to be available yet here in Australia, and the US versions are quite expensive.

I read and reviewed the first in the series, RETIREMENT HOMES ARE MURDER, earlier this year after we had been to Left Coast Crime in Hawaii and met the author Mike Befeler there.

The background to the series is that 85 year old Paul Jacobson has short term memory loss. Like most elderly people he remembers things from the past very well, but most of them will be thankful they don't have his peculiar affliction - sleep wipes the slate of his memory perfectly clean. So if he takes a nap, all that preceded it is gone, and overnight sleep erases the previous day. To counteract that, in the first in the series, Paul's granddaughter got him to write a daily journal so that he can read it the following day and and least get some idea of what he has been doing. In RETIREMENT HOMES ARE MURDER, Paul was living on Hawaii in a retirement home, but his son Denny thought that was too far away and has persuaded Paul to come to live with his family in Boulder Colorado. The idea is really to keep a better eye on Paul, who always seemed to be getting into serious trouble in Hawaii.

But Paul's move to Boulder doesn't start too well - the man he is sitting next to on the plane rather inconveniently dies, and that's just the start of a succession of serious situations for Paul.
Like the earlier title LIVING WITH YOUR KIDS is an irreverent poke at the lives of the elderly. You'll discover for example that there is one thing that Paul can do that seems to prevent his memory loss, but is it a sustainable solution? Paul's son Denny is worrying that his memory may be going the same way, his daughter-in-law Allison is amazingly welcome, and his 12 year old granddaughter is delightful, a sleuth and lawyer in the making.

I kept thinking of what an amazing job the author Mike Befeler does of keeping his wires uncrossed. We, the reader, basically see the world through Paul Jacobson's eyes, and of course we can remember a lot of what he has forgotten. Just occasionally I felt like poking Paul, to tell him that we had already discovered the answer to that question - why the heck didn't he write it down!

You can probably tell from my tone that I thoroughly enjoyed reading LIVING WITH YOUR KIDS IS MURDER. I think Mike Befeler has hit on a story line that the elderly will find enjoyable too. It's not a long read - the hardcover version is 261 pages. ISBN-13: 978-1594147616.

My rating : 4.4

Review: RETIREMENT HOMES ARE MURDER, Mike Befeler

Thomson Gale, 2007, ISBN 978-1-59414-515-5, 290 pages.

Waking up every morning with a clean slate may appeal to some but for Paul Jacobsen it is "crapola". Every time he sleeps Paul Jacobsen's short term memory re-sets itself, so it is a real incentive not to nap during the day. While he is awake he has a photographic memory of what has happened since he last slept. And he's been living with this for 5 years!

Paul's son Denny has helped him to move into a retirement home on Big Island, Hawaii, and he wakes the next morning with no memory of how he got there or where important things like the dining room are. That morning he discovers the body in the laundry chute.

Mike Befeler's debut novel is humorous, quirky, and a bit of a romp in more ways than one. Mike himself, whom we met earlier this year at Left Coast Crime, refers to it as "geezer lit" - hence the cap in the image to the right.

RETIREMENT HOMES ARE MURDER is simultaneously a murder mystery with the usual red herrings, and a realistic exploration of the problems that be-set the elderly with advancing age.

My rating: 4.3

Blurb from Mike Befeler's website:
Remembering nothing from the day before, crotchety octogenarian Paul Jacobson must become an amateur sleuth to clear himself as a murder suspect when he finds a dead body in the trash chute of a retirement home. As Paul’s snooping and short-term memory loss get him in trouble with the local police, his new friends and granddaughter Jennifer help him solve an expanding list of crimes. Paul finds romance as he struggles to escape a murderer intent on a repeat performance.

Mike Befeler now has a sequel in print:
LIVING WITH YOUR KIDS IS MURDER.
Blurb from Mike's site:
Imagine waking up in your son’s home, not remembering anything from the day before and being accused of murder. Or consider a male Miss Marple enmeshed in a light-hearted Memento with a dash of Fifty First Dates. In this, the second of the Paul Jacobson Geezer-lit Mystery series, crotchety octogenarian Paul Jacobson must solve two murders while struggling with the problems of his short-term memory loss. As Paul ends up suspiciously close to a bank robbery, kidnapping and drug bust, his granddaughter Jennifer helps him track down the real perpetrators. Paul juggles two girlfriends, experiences the vagaries of romance and must find a way to stay alive when he confronts the murderer.

Certainly a book I'd like to get my hands on.