Paul Jacobson wakes to the smell of beer and stale pretzels, and wonders why he’s in a seedy bar. When he opens his eyes, he realizes he’s on an airplane, with no idea where he’s going, or for that matter, where he’s coming from. But this is normal for Paul, as readers of book one in the series know. Paul suffers from a short term memory condition.

Moving in with his grown son’s family in Boulder, Colorado seems like a good idea. Spending time with his amateur sleuth granddaughter is a delight. When Paul is suspected of murder, the living arrangement becomes problematic. Paul’s memory condition complicates his attempts to clear his name.

The second book in the Paul Jacobson series is as fast-paced as the first. While the story is laugh-out-loud funny, the author also delivers the tribulations of senior citizens with poignancy. This was a fun read with a suitably complicated mystery.
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I began this book with some reticence being close to geezer age myself (just reached the having a great-grandchild stage.) I mean who wants to read about the travails of an old guy. I was hooked after the first page.

This has to be one of the most unusual detective stories I have ever run across. The “hero” is an eighty-five-year-old geezer with short-term memory loss who is flying from Hawaii to live with his son in Denver (he has to write himself a note to understand why he is on the plane,) when his seatmate turns up dead after Paul has just given him a shove to get him off his shoulder.

My eyes opened in the dim light. Where the hell was I? I heard a background rattling hum and smelled a mixture of beer and stale pretzels. All I could imagine was a seedy bar. I blinked, trying to focus. I was wedged in an uncomfortable seat with a man’s head lolling on my shoulder. I squinted and recognized the uniform of a flight attendant, checking seatbelts. Shit. I was on an airplane. But where was I going? I couldn’t remember.

Paul’s penchant for intolerance of bullshit inevitably lands him in hot water from which he must extricate himself. His memory issues often make things worse. He can remember what happened during the day but his memory seems to reset at night so he is constantly writing down what happened during the day (at the suggestion of his delightful granddaughter) to which he can later refer. Ironically, the character was born in 1921 making him just about my dad’s age so his experience of moving into a retirement home (the first book) and then in with his son’s family somewhat mirror my own experience and one cannot help wonder what the experience must have been like.

A minor complaint is that occasionally I felt I was reading a YA novel (not that I have much experience with YA novels, so feel free to ignore my comment.)

I can only hope my kids will be as patient with me when I get to the drooling stage as Paul’s (was that his name) kids are in this book. Some people have complained with the language used, stating most people read mysteries to avoid sex, violence, and crude language. To which I say, espèce de charogne!. (See, curmudgeons can get away with almost anything.) ( )

Another Geezer-Lit book. Another great read Stephanie Plum has nothing on Paul Jacobson! ( )

First Line: My eyes opened in the dim light.

In this second book in the "Geezer Lit" mystery series, 85-year-old Paul Jacobson has left the nursing home in Hawaii and has flown to Boulder, Colorado, to live with his son, daughter-in-law, and 12-year-old granddaughter. Unfortunately the passenger sitting next to him on the plane is dead by journey's end, and since Paul was seen arguing with him, the folks in law enforcement are looking at him with very narrowed eyes.

It just so happens that Paul has short-term memory loss. Every time he goes to sleep, he wakes up with his mind wiped clean of recent events, so he's not much help when he's questioned-- and it makes him cranky. When he attends a Colorado Mountain Retirement Properties presentation (the company the dead man on the plane worked for), another CMRP employee is killed, and Paul is convinced that the property company is at the bottom of it all. In no time, he and his granddaughter, Jennifer, set out to find a killer.

This series is laced with humor, and at the heart of it is the wisecracking old fart, Paul Jacobson. He's learned to minimize the effects of his memory loss by writing the day's events in a journal each night and then reading it when he gets up in the morning. When he arrives at his son's home, the first thing he does is ask his daughter-in-law Allison what the family's daily routine is, and what chores he can take care of. Allison gives him dog-walking duty, and his walks not only let him get acquainted with the neighborhood and the town, they have a tendency to get him in hot water.

You see, every time Paul turns around, he's being pinned with committing a crime-- theft, chopping down trees, using bad language and gestures around small boys-- the list is long and confirms the fact that he is a crime magnet. Each and every time he's questioned by the police, he can't help making wisecracks, and I can picture the twinkle in his eye as he does it. The police are not amused, but Paul's got a secret weapon on his side: his very bright, very forthright, and very devious granddaughter. The two of them together make quite the team.

The identity of the killer in this book was rather easy for me to deduce, but that's not the focus of Living With Your Kids Is Murder. The real focus is Paul Jacobson himself. Mike Befeler has given us a feisty character with a disability that would make many others in his shoes give up and plant themselves in a chair by the window so they can stare glumly outside day after day feeling sorry for themselves. Paul refuses to do this. He has close and loving relationships with the members of his family, he makes friends easily and helps them as much as he can... he even winds up with two girlfriends, and by book's end is ready for yet another adventure.

Paul Jacobson will not go quietly into that good night, and we readers are the richer for it. ( )

This book, #2 in the Paul Jacobsen Geezer-Lit Mystery series, is the first book I've completed reading on my new Kindle. I noticed also that this book is available as an audio from Audible.

Finding that it was available on Kindle was great because the paper versions don't appear to be available yet here in Australia, and the US versions are quite expensive.

I read and reviewed the first in the series, RETIREMENT HOMES ARE MURDER, earlier this year after we had been to Left Coast Crime in Hawaii and met the author Mike Befeler there.

The background to the series is that 85 year old Paul Jacobson has short term memory loss. Like most elderly people he remembers things from the past very well, but most of them will be thankful they don't have his peculiar affliction - sleep wipes the slate of his memory perfectly clean. So if he takes a nap, all that preceded it is gone, and overnight sleep erases the previous day. To counteract that, in the first in the series, Paul's granddaughter got him to write a daily journal so that he can read it the following day and and least get some idea of what he has been doing. In RETIREMENT HOMES ARE MURDER, Paul was living on Hawaii in a retirement home, but his son Denny thought that was too far away and has persuaded Paul to come to live with his family in Boulder Colorado. The idea is really to keep a better eye on Paul, who always seemed to be getting into serious trouble in Hawaii.

But Paul's move to Boulder doesn't start too well - the man he is sitting next to on the plane rather inconveniently dies, and that's just the start of a succession of serious situations for Paul.
Like the earlier title LIVING WITH YOUR KIDS is an irreverent poke at the lives of the elderly. You'll discover for example that there is one thing that Paul can do that seems to prevent his memory loss, but is it a sustainable solution? Paul's son Denny is worrying that his memory may be going the same way, his daughter-in-law Allison is amazingly welcome, and his 12 year old granddaughter is delightful, a sleuth and lawyer in the making.

I kept thinking of what an amazing job the author Mike Befeler does of keeping his wires uncrossed. We, the reader, basically see the world through Paul Jacobson's eyes, and of course we can remember a lot of what he has forgotten. Just occasionally I felt like poking Paul, to tell him that we had already discovered the answer to that question - why the heck didn't he write it down!

You can probably tell from my tone that I thoroughly enjoyed reading LIVING WITH YOUR KIDS IS MURDER. I think Mike Befeler has hit on a story line that the elderly will find enjoyable too. It's not a long read - the hardcover version is 261 pages. ( )