‘Agnes Sharp and the Trip of a Lifetime’ by Leonie Swann

Published by Allison & Busby,
24 July 2025.
ISBN: 978-0-74903155-8 (PB)

It is midwinter in the village of Duck End, where retired policewoman Agnes Sharp shares her large home, Sunset Hall, with five other pensioners.  When the old boiler stops working, the occupants of the house face a miserably cold few days until the plumber can get to them.  Then, one of the housemates, Edwina, wins an all expenses paid trip for two to a luxury hotel, and the companions decide they will all go with her.  It will be pricey, but they’ll be warm! 

A few days later the group board a plane bound for the remote Cornish coast and within hours they find themselves stepping through the welcoming portal of Eden Hotel.  Little do the Sunset Hall six know what lies in wait for them.  Suffice to say that this Eden will be no Paradise!

The isolated resort, with its poor, sometimes non-existent, wi-fi signal, offers the perfect setting for this murder mystery.  The narrative delights with literary allusions including Agatha Christie’s A Caribbean Mystery.  Meanwhile, the plot teases with puzzling disappearances, red herrings a plenty and a rapidly rising body count.  Agnes and her intrepid friends have little option but to find and expose the serial killer in their midst.

The characters in the novel, human and otherwise, are wonderfully entertaining creations and fall into two distinct groups - the Sunset Hall holidaymakers and the hotel staff and guests.  Agnes’s extended community includes three other women. First is Edwina, who used to be a member of the Secret Services, next is Charlie who likes a tipple and adds a touch of elegance to the group, and finally there is Bernadette, a blind woman with a scandalous past.  The house share also includes two men - Winston who requires a wheelchair to get around but has excellent computer skills as well as incisive logic, and ex-military man Marshall, whose forgetfulness is more than compensated for by his valour.  Characters from the hotel group include a suspicious ‘White Widow’ and Trudy, a bubbly personality who is constantly filching food because she’s enrolled on the detox package!  Two hedgehogs also feature in the book, along with a handsome white Boa Constrictor who delivers intermittent first-person narratives throughout the story.  The unconventional cast, quirky location, and surreal events blend into a story that is delightful and, at times, riotous.

Agnes Sharp and the Trip of a Lifetime is the second in the series of Agnes Sharp mysteries. The book is translated from the German by Amy Bojang.  It works perfectly as a standalone.  The author has created a witty, whacky, feelgood whodunnit that abounds with amiable and amusing characters. 

A cosy crime that keeps the reader guessing until the end and highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Dot  Marshall-Gent

Leonie Swann, is the nom de plume of a German crime writer. She was born in Germany in 1975. She studied philosophy, psychology and English literature in Munich, and now lives in Berlin. 

Dot Marshall-Gent worked in the emergency services for twenty years first as a police officer, then as a paramedic and finally as a fire control officer before graduating from King’s College, London as a teacher of English in her mid-forties.  She completed a M.A. in Special and Inclusive Education at the Institute of Education, London and now teaches part-time and writes mainly about educational issues.  Dot sings jazz and country music and plays guitar, banjo and piano as well as being addicted to reading mystery and crime fiction.