Once again, senior sleuths are the stars of crime fiction

For decades, mystery fiction was ruled by older detectives. There was Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot (who, let’s be honest, was always at least 80 in spirit), Jessica Fletcher of Murder, She Wrote, and our very own Chacha Chaudhary, the turbaned genius whose brain worked “faster than a computer.” These seasoned sleuths used experience, intellect, and a lifetime of people-watching to crack the toughest of cases.

Then, somewhere along the way, the genre got hijacked by brooding young prodigies. You know the type—detectives who spend half their time solving crimes and the other half staring at rain-streaked windows (yes, the Benedict Cumberbatch variety), contemplating life’s cruel ironies. But now, it seems the older detectives are making a grand return.

Leading the charge is Richard Osman’s cult classic, The Thursday Murder Club, which follows a quartet of retirees solving cold cases in their idyllic retirement village. The 2020 book became a phenomenon, and this year, with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment adapting it into a major film for Netflix (starring Helen Mirren, Celia Imrie, Pierce Brosnan and Ben Kingsley) it’s clear that silver-haired sleuths are officially back on trend. And it’s not just Osman. It’s evident in the undying popularity of Only Murders in the Building, currently streaming on Disney + Hotstar. The show, which premiered its fourth season in 2024, features Steve Martin and Martin Short as two aging crime enthusiasts who, between afternoon naps somehow manage to outwit the police. Sorry, Selena Gomez, but they do steal the show. Netflix also hopped on to the trend with their 2024 comedy Man on the Inside featuring Ted Danson in the lead, as a sharp-witted retired professor assisting the police.

The intertwined case of television and books is also seen in this trend snowballing into literature. Angela Merkel—yes, the former German Chancellor—has been reimagined as a detective in the book Murder at the Castle, a Miss Merkel mystery, a whodunnit that was first published in 2019 but was only translated into English in November last year by Old Street Publishing. The story follows Merkel as a retiree—with no G7 summits to attend—in desperate need of a challenge. She finds one in solving the murder in her sleepy town of Kleinfreudenstadt-on-Dumpfsee. Turns out, after years of keeping the EU together, solving a small-town murder is just light work. Move over, Miss Marple, Ms Merkel is here.

HarperCollins’ The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood, which released in 2021 and got a television reboot last March in the UK, features Judith, a crossword-loving late 70-something who stumbles upon a mystery in her quaint English village. Rather than leave it to the (often incompetent) authorities, she assembles an equally eccentric crew to crack the case. This June, Penguin Random House is putting out A Murder for Miss Hortense by Mel Pennant, which follows an elegant yet formidable retiree untangling a web of secrets in her seemingly sleepy town.

So why are we all cyclically obsessed with elderly sleuths? According to author Anuja Chauhan, the answer may have something to do with age. The writer, who penned crime fiction novels like Club You To Death (2021) and The Fast and the Dead (2023), explains, “There’s always interest in ancient wisdom. Whether you have someone like Dumbledore or Yoda, or even in Lord of the Rings, you have these older, wiser figures who guide the way.” It seems we inherently trust someone who has lived long enough to have seen it all—and who probably has the patience to solve a murder or two.

Shreya Punj, head of e-commerce at HarperCollins Publishers India, agrees that the trope is timeless. “The trope exists in almost all cultures. I think it’s always fun to have an elderly, slightly bumbling character finding clues and solving crimes because, for someone in their early 20s or mid-30s, it gives us hope—hope that growing older isn’t boring, that you can still have fun while stopping crime.” Punj adds, “The essential idea is putting somebody who shouldn’t be in a situation and then watching the fun unfold.”

There’s also the fact that these stories are, well, fun. After years of grim, self-serious detectives drowning in existential dread, we’re ready for something lighter, even cosier. In The Thursday Murder Club, the characters’ ability to charm, disarm, and mildly annoy their way to the truth is both hilarious and heartwarming. It’s less gritty realism, and more red herrings with a satisfying reveal before tea-time.

Delhi-based Shubhankar Mukherjee, a 26-year-old crime fiction super fan, points out that elderly detectives bely expectations: “The traditional perspective of detectives has been pretty rigid for the past 150 years. But for older characters, detective work becomes a way to prove—to themselves and to society—that they are still functional and valuable.” Mukherjee adds that there’s often an element of invisibility at play. “Older people can be overlooked, which ironically makes them the perfect undercover investigators. No one suspects the sweet old lady at the corner table of running a sting operation.”

The return of elderly sleuths also taps into our love for community-driven storytelling. In Only Murders in the Building, the unlikely trio—a couple of seasoned curmudgeons and a millennial with good eyebrows—becomes a makeshift family, bonding over their shared obsession with crime. Similarly, in The Marlow Murder Club, Judith’s investigations pull her out of her solitary life and into deep friendships. These aren’t just whodunnits; they’re feel-good stories about finding your people—even if you suspect them of hiding something.

But most importantly, this trope works because it’s believable. Teen detectives have homework, and adults are too busy with jobs and bills. But pensioners? No Zoom calls, no deadlines—but a lifetime’s worth of experience, and the time to eavesdrop, snoop, and solve crimes.