Our story kicks off in a quiet British town, where Edwin, an 80-something amateur sleuth, teams up with Natalka, his younger, sharp-eyed partner, who is eager for a proper case after a series of low-level investigations. When a local newspaper writer with a knack for spotting oddities in the obituary column turns up dead, and the authorities shrug it off as natural causes, Edwin and Natalka can’t shake the feeling that something darker is going on. Then Melody, a novelist, dies under suspicious circumstances. Their sleuthing soon leads them to a writers’ retreat where egos, secrets and ambitions swirl—and, of course, another death follows.
Edwin isn’t treated as comic relief because of his age—he’s observant, thoughtful and occasionally underestimated. Natalka brings her own intergenerational struggles, as she deals with the realities of living with her aging mother. Together with Benedict, an ex-monk turned café owner, this unlikely detective crew feels like a group of old friends.
The charm of The Last Word lies in its ability to balance coziness with real-world, timely issues. There’s tea (it’s England after all) and quirky suspects, but there are also themes of aging, grief, cultural displacement and the question of how we’ll be remembered when our own “last word” is written.
