What is a grouchy old man to do when two attractive women encourage him to leave his assistant-living apartment and join a clandestine chili party? He actually has fun–until someone ends up dead. Now Earl Walker seems to be the only person suspicious of the way the partygoer met his demise. Can he solve the puzzle–and make a little romance–before the home closes and the suspects move away?

The back cover blurb captured my attention, and while it was an accurate description of the book, the blurb was more interesting that the book itself.

The concept was a lot of fun — a college volunteer who takes a wheelchair-bound retiree to a secret chili dinner. The execution, however, fell a bit short. Earl gets dragged around the retirement home by Jenny, the college student. The home is full of old people on medication, yet when one of them dies in front of Earl he jumps to the conclusion that it was murder. He spends the rest of the book jumping to more conclusions, and the reader doesn’t really have the chance to figure out what’s going on because we don’t get to see any of the clues. Earl also spends a lot of time thinking about and describing his day-to-day life, which slows down the story.

Overall, it’s an okay read, but nothing I’ll pick up again.