As a young person, I read - quite a bit. One of my favourite fiction authors was Agathe Christie. (I only found Tolkien and Lewis when I'd left school, and both wrote fiction and non-fiction.) A while ago on a Sunday morning, I happened to switch on a radio station where a British author was talking about his books. I knew of the author as an occasional guest on a TV panel show. During this interview I learned he'd been with the BBC for some time - but always behind the scenes.
Even his appearances as a panellist were not simple - he wears very thick glasses and even with them can't read an autocue. Which brought him to books. These are sufficiently Agatha Christie-like to suit my taste - but sufficiently unique to make them really enjoyable. What are these differences?
Firstly there's not one "hero" - there are four residents of a retirement village who investigate "ordinary" murders. Each chapter is told by a different one - which makes them relatively short so even with my memory, it is manageable. Some chapters are told by other characters, and we've read the third book so we know some of these become part of the core.
Second, if you hadn't noticed from the first point - these are retired citizens, making this possibly the first series about a bunch of "retired" sleuths. The husband of one of them is even in the early stages of dementia. A series that recognises life does not always have to end at 70.
Finally, there's more than you might expect after the last chapter - or where there might ordinarily be a last chapter. This might develop character traits while showing X wasn't actually murdered and the person who admitted to two murders was innocent of them but had murdered someone else for whom DNA evidence expectedly turned up where no one expected.
If you're interested, the author is Richard Osman, and the series is The Thursday Murder Club.