Too Old for This - Samantha Downing - ★★★.¼

AUTHOR: Samantha Downing

NARRATOR: Elizabeth Wiley

GENRE: Crime Thriller.

PUBLICATION DATE: August 12, 2025

RATING: 3.25 stars.

In a Nutshell: A crime thriller about a retired serial killer forced back into action. Unlikeable but compelling lead. Interesting at the start, slightly repetitive in the second half. Somewhat lopsided in its character development, though there are some interesting side characters. A decent one-time read for me, which is a slightly outlier opinion.

Plot Preview:

Seventy-five-year-old Lottie Jones lives a calm retired life, talking regularly with her son Archie, rolling her eyes at his upcoming wedding to a girl half his age, and enjoying bingo and gossiping with her friends from church. No one knows that Lottie had a past life as a serial killer. So when a young and ambitious documentary producer named Plum Dixon turns up at Lottie's doorstep wanting to tell her life story, Lottie knows it's time to say goodbye to her retirement from murder, even if Plum claims that she wants to exonerate Lottie's name. But getting away with murder in your seventies isn't as easy as it was in your youth. Soon, Lottie finds herself needing all her old skills. Because the knocks on her door just won't stop!

The story comes to us in Lottie's first-person perspective.

I'm not much into any kind of thrillers these days as they are mostly over the top and I find it tough to suspend disbelief and ignore the glaring logical loopholes. Sadly, though this book was very popular with my friends here, it also demands the same approach.

For one, this is somewhat like a cat-and-mouse thriller, with Lottie constantly second-guessing who knows her true identity and what she did to Plum, and some other character trying to catch Lottie red-handed (pun unintended.) However, a cat-and-mouse story is fun when there are two equally clever characters who constantly try to outwit each other. In this book, multiple people come close to discovering the truth, but they are never ever clever enough. They each come into the plot one by one, and despite facing a couple of unexpected turns, Lottie either escapes from their scrutiny or ends up adding to her tally. This gets monotonous after a while.

The story itself isn't so bad, but after a certain point, it feels like the plot is circling around the same formula. It's not like there are no twists. A couple of the developments took me by genuine surprise. But if even the twists eventually lead down the same path, it turns into a game that has the same end result, just with different modus operandi each time.

Further, some promotional material and reviews for this novel called it a dark comedy. As I am more a ‘dark comedy’ person than a ‘murder thriller’ person, I was hoping for some laughs. But the book turned out to be mostly dark with minimal comedy. I guess I can’t hold this against the book as the official genre is still ‘mystery-thriller’. But I can certainly say I went into the book with incorrect expectations. Then again, the few chuckle-worthy scenes were really funny.

Lottie is definitely an interesting character. In the last few years, we've seen a spurt in the number of books with geriatric leads, but as far as I know, none of them were serial killers. This makes Lottie unique. I was a bit taken aback at seeing her relish all the killing, almost like an older version of Dexter. Don’t assume that her murderous techniques are basic just because of her age; the crimes (and their aftermath) are quite graphic.

Thankfully, the book shows Lottie’s life beyond serial killing as well. Her interactions with her friends, her son and her future daughter-in-law let us see the person she is. In many ways, she’s the kind of clichéd old lady we typically find in fiction, if you could just excuse that little predilection for killing. I wish the book had another equally compelling character so that the plot wouldn't have felt so lopsided in favour of Lottie.

Her first-person perspective reflects her personality well, which means that to enjoy the book, you better like Lottie despite her nefarious tendencies. I found Lottie a bit too cocky, judgemental,. self-congratulatory and annoying for my liking. All those attributes might be justified considering her success as a serial killer, but it also makes her tough to root for. As such, some of her inner monologues were more aggravating than entertaining for me.

One thing I found interesting is that there’s no moralising justification provided for Lottie’s plunge into killing. She has her reasons, of course, but these aren’t the kind of explanations you usually find antagonists making in fiction. Though I felt sorry for (some of) her victims, the lack of a psychological rationale behind the killings makes Lottie’s character an even more impactful one. She isn't grey when it comes to murders, just solely and deviously black.

Given how the main chunk of the story contains Lottie’s response to various people who are a threat to her freedom, we barely get to know the other characters. This is a fairly common issue with poorly-written first-person narrations, but in this case, it was a truly missed opportunity. I would have liked to know a couple of the characters better.

The final chapter worked well for me because I thought it would go a certain way but it ended up doing something else. Now that is the kind of a surprise I am always happy to welcome.

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:

The audiobook, clocking at 10 hrs 49 min, is narrated by Elizabeth Wiley. She's a wonderful narrator, narrating Lottie to perfection. Given that most of the story is in chronological order and the characters come in sequence rather than at once, this will be an easy listen even for audio newbies.

Overall, this book has its share of charm and harm. As long as you don’t mind the strong feeling of déjà vu in the second half and can root for a woman who actually doesn’t deserve to be rooted for, this can be quite the entertainer.

I think I would have liked the book better if I could either sympathise with Lottie because of her past circumstances or support her decisions because her victims deserved to die. However, as both of these conditions weren’t applicable, my moral compass simply didn’t allow me to *enjoy* such a story. That said, most reviews for this book are strongly positive so don’t allow me to be a buzzkill. Please read them and take a more informed call on the book.

Recommended to fans of crime thrillers who would enjoy a book with many crimes and a few thrills and one dangerous geriatric lead. As always for this genre, suspend your disbelief before diving in.