Editorial Content for Too Old For This

Samantha Downing, the bestselling author of MY LOVELY WIFE and HE STARTED IT, returns with her most unassuming protagonist yet in TOO OLD FOR THIS. This gritty thriller features Lorena Mae Lansdale, a septuagenarian serial killer forced to come out of “retirement” for one last job…and then another, and another.

“I’m not going to blame you for the murders or claim that you should’ve been arrested. I want to exonerate you once and for all.” Accused of three brutal murders 40 years ago, Lottie Jones should be delighted to hear these words when spunky, ambitious Plum Dixon arrives on her doorstep, having tracked her down despite her name change and devotion to privacy. Plum tells the 75-year-old that she is the producer of a docuseries dedicated to revisiting old cases and proving the innocence of the wrongly accused once and for all.

The thing that Plum has all wrong is that Lottie did commit those murders --- and plenty more since --- and she has no more interest in being “exonerated” than she does finally being arrested for the crimes. But Lottie knows how to get out of a bad situation (relying on luck is never enough, in her experience). So it is that the last thing poor Plum sees is Lottie’s umbrella coming down straight at her head, her blood soon spilling out onto Lottie’s black-and-white-tiled kitchen floor.

"Clever writing, stunning twists, and a highly original, unforgettable narrator will have you glued to the pages of this wickedly good thriller that is perfect for fans of Alice Feeney and Sarah Pekkanen."

Within hours, Plum is disposed of. Her body is dismembered, packaged and burned, and her ashes are distributed to Lottie’s church friends for their lawns. These old gals are nothing if not resourceful, even if none of them know about Lottie’s extracurricular activities. Despite her age, Lottie is still as sharp as a tack, and she even remembers to get rid of Plum’s cell phone and any other digital forensics that may trace the girl to her doorstep. For anyone committing their first murder, the arrival of Plum’s desperate, searching boyfriend, Cole, could be a hiccup. But for someone as skilled as Lottie, it’s just another opportunity. It’s not long before she has the police convinced that Cole is the most likely suspect, and that his appearance at her home is just a ruse to pin the murder on her. Case closed. Or so Lottie thinks.

Though it’s clear that Lottie is an accomplished killer, her previous murderous deeds all centered on three crucial points: just as with sex, she had to be “in the mood”; she needed a good opportunity; and, perhaps most important, she had to be extremely angry. Her murder of Plum, on the other hand, was rushed and spur of the moment. With that change in modus operandi, even Lottie’s years of experience aren’t quite enough to deal with what comes next. And then there’s the obvious: Lottie just isn’t as young as she used to be, and her mind --- her greatest weapon of all --- is not quite as sharp as it once was either.

Now embroiled in an active investigation into Plum's “disappearance,” Lottie has close calls with a shrewd young detective, Plum’s unstable mother, and, worst of all, Detective Kenneth Burke, the man who nearly arrested her for a string of murders in the 1980s and apparently still has it out for her. Even in her personal life, change is coming. Lottie’s not-so-recently divorced son, Archie, has just called to let her know that his 20-years-younger girlfriend is now his pregnant fiancée. So she must navigate accepting her new daughter-in-law and future grandchild while grappling with how to remain close to Archie’s ex-wife and children, all of whom were blindsided by the divorce and his moving on so quickly.

If there’s one thing Lottie knows how to do (aside from murder), it’s finding and exploiting opportunity. So out go her comfortable yet trendy wardrobe and sensible sneakers, and in come fraying nightgowns and a walker. After all, who would ever suspect a sweet little old lady of one murder, let alone several? But as sharp as she is, even Lottie can admit that she has made some mistakes in this latest killing spree. As she races to hide her crimes and continue to be the good mother, grandmother and friend she prides herself on being, she must ask herself: Am I just too old for this?

A septuagenarian serial killer may sound like an outlandish premise. Paired with the brutality and gore readers witness right from the first chapter, it’s easy to see why TOO OLD FOR THIS may be a hard sell for some. But Samantha Downing has crafted a main character who is sharply intelligent, bitingly funny, and, okay, more than a little angry. But aren’t we all, on some level? Lottie has worked hard for her retirement (both her literal one from a bank a few years earlier and her decade-long one from murdering). Like many retirees, she is not willing to suffer a disruption to her routine. At the same time, she is tired of being ignored and shoved aside for younger, shinier, flashier women, a resounding chorus throughout her life.

Accessing Lottie from this point of view makes her instantly relatable --- even if she is pathologically twisted --- and allows for Downing’s more wild and provocative plot elements to soar. They include the laugh-out-loud funny judgments of Lottie’s church friends, the shocking number of victims in her past, and even her cringeworthy attempts to bond with her try-hard new daughter-in-law.

Making you fall for an aging psycho killer is a very ambitious task, and in another author’s hands, TOO OLD FOR THIS could have skewed toward cozy or campy. But Downing approaches her story in a creative, multilayered way. She pairs brutal murders with wry, witty observations on life and more than a few harrumphs at life’s inconveniences, not to mention the way that society so often ignores the old and vulnerable…unless they’re exploitable.

Clever writing, stunning twists, and a highly original, unforgettable narrator will have you glued to the pages of this wickedly good thriller that is perfect for fans of Alice Feeney and Sarah Pekkanen.