Book Review: Cheater by Karen Rose

One of the hottest trends in crime fiction is seniors being murdered and/or seniors solving murders.  Cheater is set in a San Diego retirement complex populated by considerably affluent retirees. How does the title of Karen Rose’s latest mystery fit the crime? A cheater is “a person who acts dishonestly in order to gain an advantage.” But the corollary, cheated, has a slightly different definition: “avoid (something undesirable) by luck or skill.” A sentence that displays the meaning—”she cheated death in a spectacular crash,” is almost too on point for the residents of San Diego’s Shady Oaks Retirement Village. The biblical lifespan is three score and ten (70 years)—by that measuring stick, most of the folks who live at Shady Oaks have “cheated” death and are enjoying the fruits of their labors in comfort and style. Readers familiar with Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club series will understand the milieu: “The four retirees who comprise the Thursday Murder Club are wily, thoughtful of each other, and run rings around non-retirees. They live in an upscale retiree village in the bucolic English countryside (money does grease the wheels of aging).” 

Although death by old age at Shady Oaks is par for the course, a resident being brutally murdered is unheard of. Detective Katherine “Kit” McKittrick of the San Diego Police Department (SDPD) is called to the scene. Franklin “Frankie” Delano Flynn is dead, and his apartment has been turned upside down. While she examines Flynn’s apartment, “haunting melancholy music from a single piano was coming from the speaker mounted on the victim’s living room wall.” The music is so poignant Kit’s eyes burn. As much as she wants to turn it off, the unit hasn’t been “dusted for prints” so she carries on.

The cause of death of the eighty-five-year-old white male was most likely the butcher knife still embedded in his chest. But she’d learn long ago not to assume. Still, a butcher knife to the chest was never good. It was a long wound, the gash in the man’s white button-up shirt extending from his sternum to his navel. Whoever had killed him had to have had a lot of strength to create such a wound.

The source of the melancholy music is criminal psychologist Sam Reeves, who is playing a baby grand for a somber crowd. “Of all the gin joints” is Kit’s gut reaction—she has worked with Sam before. Readers met Sam and Kit in Cold-Blooded Liar, the first San Diego Case Files mystery: “Kit McKittrick and Sam Reeves are honorable, driven characters with empathetic souls. Cold-Blooded Liar is the first in their series…readers will welcome more stories illuminating the intersection between therapy and police work.” He’s the criminal psychologist who liaises with the SDPD. For personal reasons that go back to Kit’s troubled childhood, for the past six months, Kit has steered clear of Sam, suppressing the personal feelings she has for him.  She shunted collaborations to her associate, Connor Robinson. Sam is one of the good guys at Shady Oaks: he “honors his late grandfather’s memory by playing the piano for the residents regularly,” every month for four years. 

The residents of Shady Oaks are an insular, grief-stricken group. They trust Sam—he’s more than a drop-by pianist, over the years, he’s developed close friendships with several retirees. Kit needs Sam’s credibility and access to investigate Flynn’s death. Sam tells Kit that Ryan, Frankie’s husband, passed away years ago, sharing that “they got married when same-sex marriage was legalized in California back in 2008.” Kit continues with questions.

“Thank you. Do you know who his friends here were?”

 

That was an easy question, because Frankie hadn’t had that many real friends. “Benjamin Dreyfus and Georgia Shearer. They were his main companions. He didn’t socialize much. He seemed to be grumpy, but he really just liked to be alone.”

 

Connor Robinson spoke up for the first time. “I have Mr. Dreyfus and Ms. Shearer set up in the visitation rooms, Kit. We should be getting back to them. Mr. Dreyfus didn’t look too well.”

 

Sam didn’t expect that Benny would be handling this well. “Benny’s health is fragile. Physically and mentally.” He hesitated, wanting to warn them so that they’d be careful with Benny but uncomfortable sharing the man’s personal information.

 

Kit leaned in, lowering her voice. “What is it? You look like you want to tell us something.”

 

“Just . . . be gentle with him.”

Kit learns of the many interconnections between the residents—she is told Frankie’s death “will devastate” Benny. Why? Because Ryan, Frankie’s late husband, “was the brother of Benny’s late wife, Martha.” The two had been best friends for forty plus years. 

Detectives always unravel two threads after a crime—who knew what was going on (i.e., the person who runs the security and knows where the tapes are) and secondly, cui bono, who benefits? The residents of Shady Oaks may be old, and some of them may have wonky recall, but they are financially loaded. Take Frankie’s late husband Ryan: “He sold one of his programs for millions of dollars back in the nineties during the rise of the dot-coms.” Kit learns from Ms. Shearer that Frank has a house in Russian Hill, San Francisco—the empty dwelling is worth at least six or seven million. How about the cost of the “everything-you-need plan at Shady Oaks? It “starts at a hundred grand and goes up to a million.” No wonder Kit gasped. That doesn’t even count the monthly fees.

Cheater is a convoluted, tricky, mystery. Given the amounts of money floating around, Kit is unsurprised to learn that Shady Oaks may not be the only senior residence targeted by sophisticated and camouflaged thieves. . . some operating in plain sight. The elderly residents have humor and agency, some enjoying a lifestyle that even a thirty-something might envy. Bring on the next San Diego Case Files mystery from Karen Rose—Kit and Sam are just getting started.