You want I should tell you what a day at the Julius and Rebecca Cohen Home for Jewish Seniors, where I live, is like? So what should it be? Life in a retirement home is a bissel different from that outside, but not much. We eat three meals a day in the dining room, and we have tea (usually only Mr. Lipton) and cookies in the afternoon. We read, we play bridge (or just watch and kibbitz if we aren’t playing), we shmooze with each other about the latest news. Some days we may attend a lecture or a class or spend an hour in the “fitness” room with all those fancy-shmancy exercise machines. (Oy, can that be exhausting!) The Home’s shuttle takes us shopping if we like, and maybe to a play or a concert. In the evening if we don’t go out, there is the TV and sometimes a movie or a music performance in the lounge. Sometimes there are what you might politely call romantic relations between residents. It may surprise you, but the pleasures of life do not necessarily disappear when one moves to a retirement home. They just slow down a bit. All in all, it is a comfortable, if not always exciting, routine.

That is, unless you’re Rose Kaplan’s best friend, which I happen to be, in which case you must add helping Mrs. K to investigate the mysterious deaths that she seems to attract like a bee to honey. (Or is that a bear to honey? I can never remember.) You see, Mrs. K has this habit of attracting dead bodies. Not the kind that passed over peacefully from old age, but the kind that were helped in that direction by some nogoodnik who wanted them out of the way. And Mrs. K has developed a well-deserved reputation for solving these untimely deaths. Mrs. K is the smartest person I know, and although she is not fast on her feet at her age (and build), she is usually at least two steps ahead of the police.

Nu, so if it is Mrs. K who solves the murders, where do I fit in? Well, if you have read about Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the great British detective, you know that he was always accompanied on his cases by his faithful friend, Dr. Watson. Dr. Watson was no match for Mr. Holmes intellectually, but he was always ready to lend a hand. And more important, Dr. Watson wrote down all of Mr. Holmes’ cases, for the benefit of future generations like us. Well, if Mrs. K is our Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I guess I am our Dr. Watson, because it is I who tell my readers about Mrs. K’s investigations. Usually I have some part in solving the crime, although not always a very glamorous one, like when I tried to help Mrs. K squeeze through a window in a deserted apartment (that turned out not to be so deserted). And sometimes Mrs. K or I are in danger of becoming ourselves the victim of the next murder. So although a day in my life might well be quiet, relaxed, and low key, thanks to Mrs. K it might instead be frantic, nerve-wracking, and scary. But I have to admit, it certainly keeps us young, and anything but bored.

Perhaps I should add that Mrs. K and I have been compared by my readers not just to Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, but also to Lucy and Ethel. I would like to think I am more John Watson than Ethel Mertz, but that is for you to decide.

A Pain in the Tuchis, A Mrs. Kaplan Mystery #2
Genre: Cozy
Release: January 2022
Purchase Link

Combining the classic charms of Agatha Christie with the delightful humor of M. C. Beaton’s Agatha Raisin novels, Mark Reutlinger’s Mrs. Kaplan mystery series returns as a notorious crank meets an untimely fate.

Yom Kippur is a day of reflection and soul searching. But at the Julius and Rebecca Cohen Home for Jewish Seniors, Vera Gold misses this opportunity to atone for her many sins when she up and dies. Indeed, Vera was such a pain in the tuchis to all those around her that when her sister claims Vera was deliberately poisoned, the tough question isn’t who would want to kill her—but who wouldn’t?

Meet the author
Mark Reutlinger is an attorney and Professor of Law Emeritus at Seattle University. Having written several legal treatises explaining the law during his career, he now writes novels in which the law is frequently broken, including the “Mrs. Kaplan” cozy mystery series (Mrs. Kaplan and the Matzoh Ball of Death, A Pain in the Tuchis, and Oy Vey, Maria!), the political thrillers Made in China and Sister-in-Law: Violation, Seduction, and the President of the United States (the latter under the pseudonym M. R. Morgan), and the caper mystery Murder with Strings Attached. Mark and his wife Analee live in University Place, Washington.

All comments are welcomed.