ABOUT
THE BOOK

Translated from the Finnish by Kristian London

2020 Longlist

Best friends Irma and Siiri are relieved when they can finally return home, but things have changed in the retirement home . . . Sunset Grove is under new management, a sinister organisation that promises spiritual enlightenment in return for donations from its residents. And the staff seem to have disappeared, replaced by technology that remotely takes care of all of their needs, if only they could work out how to use it . . . The Lavender Ladies are increasingly suspicious of the new order and plan an elaborate act of sabotage. But their last hurrah has some drastic consequences – will the Lavender Ladies get more than they bargained for.

About the Author

Minna Lindgren is a well-known journalist, an expert of classical music and the author of several non-fiction books. Minna was inspired to write The Lavender Ladies Detective Agency after researching the treatment of the elderly in Finland for a magazine article which won the 2009 Bonnier Journalism Prize. Death in Sunset Grove is her first novel.

Librarian’s Comments

The book is the last of a trilogy starring three over-90 nice ladies caught in the mechanism of Finnish welfare for old people and courageously and humorously fighting “the system”. The last of the trilogy is the darkest of the three and projects today’s reality in the near future. Where very little of humanity and sympathy survives, thanks to over-90 year olds.  Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli “Vittorio Emanuele III”, Italy