THE ALPHABET SLEUTHS

Jensen launches a new series featuring a quartet of geriatric detectives who fall backwards into their role.

When Daphne Cole was still a cop with the Santa Bonita (California) Police Department, she helped send murderer Benny Popov to prison. No sooner has he finished serving his time than he makes his way toward Cedar Glen, Daphne’s retirement community, and attacks her. Luckily, she’s saved by her friend Claire Reynolds, a retired paralegal; unluckily, the two women now have a corpse on their hands; luckily, their two other alphabetically named friends, retired journalism professor Atsuko Kimura and thrice-divorced relator Barbara Wright, provide all the help they need to dispose of Benny’s remains. Readers who wonder what any of these hijinks have to do with sleuthing need to be patient: the Alphabet Girls don’t move from criminal conspiracy to detection until resident curmudgeon Evelyn Blair is found dead from undisclosed causes. Since Evelyn was only 94, and since she’d just called Claire about a discovery she’d made, the four friends naturally assume she’s been murdered and start investigating over the objections of Daphne’s former partner, Det. Rick Bartlett, and his new partner, Det. Jessica Miller. Though the quartet finds time to discuss suspects, evidence, and possible motives during every social occasion that brings them together, the heavy sleuthing is done by Claire, who reads through Evelyn’s ancient diaries in search of clues that eventually lead to the killer. In fact, their first case ends with “three bad guys in a row [they’ve] cleared out of Cedar Glen.” Not bad for an opener.

Wish TV’s Golden Girls had investigated more murders? Here’s your fix.