I am naming my next child Ethel LOL Loved her and easy reading. Got through this one quick!! Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher.

In Secret Lives by Mark De Castrique, seventy-five year old Ethel Fiona Crestwater is drawn into a mystery when Jonathan, one of her tenants, is killed in front of the boardinghouse she runs. But it turns out Ethel is no ordinary landlady but a spy, and all of her boarders - except for her young, distant cousin Jesse, a college student - are spies themselves.

Ethel and Jesse team up to learn who shot Jonathan, and along the way, Jesse - computer literate but something of an innocent - becomes less naive, and brassy Ethel delightfully shifts from a harmless, elderly lady persona to savvy spy as it suits the investigative moment.

Both of these characters are well drawn and
enjoyable, but I found it difficult to keep track of Ethel’s boarders - do they work for the FBI or the CIA? - and the number of police detectives and agency personnel who are looking into the case.

Did Ethel herself work for the FBI or the CIA? Or both? In the past, or currently? Either those details were never made clear, or I missed them.

The plot centers around a multilayered theft involving Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and it all became too much for me to follow.

Loved this fast paced "cozy" mystery featuring 75- year old retired FBI agent, Ethel. In this novel, Ethel is on the case when her boarder gets killed in her front yard. This is a fun, roller coaster "who dun it." I thoroughly enjoyed the characters and trying to figure out who the killer was. It was definitely a surprise!

Such a fun read! I loved the characters and this was such a breath of fresh air in the thriller genre

This plot is incredibly unique and I thought I would give it a try, but it fell flat in many areas for me.

Was such a refreshing story line. I haven't read a book that is even similar to this storyline. It definitely kept me interested right up till the end.

I feel like you could tell Ethel was written by a man. If Killers of a Certain Age didn't come out in the same season, I would have been much more excited about this, but it wasn't as strong in comparison.

4 stars!

This was short and sweet! I've been unclear if I like books with senior protagonists because I love the Thursday Murder Club but I did not like Killers of a Certain Age. However, Ethel was so fun! She was super cool and I liked all of the talk about the secret service, FBI, and stolen money. Overall a very fun time and I honestly would be interested in reading more in this series.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

What a fantastic book, I loved the story and the characters, the pages flew by. Thank you for this change to preview this amazing book.

Fast paced and really enjoyed this book! Reminded me a lot of The Thursday Murder Club - which is an all time favorite book. This book was fun to read and keeps you on your toes!

Don’t underestimate 75-year-old Ethel Crestwater, who runs a boarding house for government agents in the DC area. She may be petite and appear frail, but looks are deceiving. When one of her boarders is murdered, Ethyl’s determined to see justice served. With the help of her double first cousin, Jesse, a university student and also a boarder, she launches her own investigation.

I love the characters in this book. Ethel and Jesse make a formidable team and their interactions are the best. The mystery surrounding the murder involves crypto currency, fraud, theft, and murder. Even though I’m somewhat of a novice when it comes to the world of bitcoins and other currencies of this type, it was still an interesting and entertaining plot, with enough action to keep a steady pace. Secret Lives is a thoroughly enjoyable book.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book for review.

It is hard to imagine the direction that the story will take by just the starting pages (if you have not yet read the blurb). The plot begins with a man making a transaction and dying at the end of it. He is a boarder at Ethel's who only hosts government agents and has security clearance, and has done a lot of work for the government herself in other capacities.
The only non-official person in her building is a relative who is going to college locally and also turns out to be the person to see the fleeing perpetrators from the scene of the crime. He is now invested in the resolution of it all, mostly because he never suspected Ethel of being such an important person.
There are large sums of money involved in whatever happened in the very first chapter. Things slow down after the first fast-paced scenes if it becomes an entirely investigative approach (except that it is unauthorized), and we get sudden glimpses into what the villains are up to. Although that latter part does not help in identifying what the final resolution will be because there are a few twisted directions that things take, and we, as readers, do not have enough information to make that call.
I liked the reading experience mostly because it was very different from most of the books I tend to read in a given year. It was strange to see an older woman as a vigilante investigator, but that was part of its charm.
I would recommend this to readers of spy-like fiction. There is to be another book in this series, one that I might want to check when it comes out before deciding on the series as a whole.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

I am loving these books recently with strong older women! WOW! This book was so good! It was filled with everything I love, likable characters, a fast paced plot and the love of family! Highly recommend!

I absolutely loved this book. It hooked me and kept me turning pages until I was done. Finished it in two days! The character development was strong, and the premise was unique enough that it didn't feel like anything else I've read.

Ethel is in her 70s, and runs a boarding house for federal agents temporarily assigned in Washington, DC. Jesse, her double-first-cousin-twice-removed, is staying with her while he attends college. He’s on a video chat with his girlfriend who’s out of the country when a noise loud enough to be an explosion happens right beneath his window. It wasn’t an explosion. It was gunshots. And a Secret Service agent is bleeding out on the sidewalk.

Jesse is astonished at Ethel’s transformation. Everything he thought he knew about her is wrong. She had already called for an ambulance and police, told him how to apply pressure to the wound, and knew when the agent died. She analyzed the evidence, told Jesse what to say and do, then called the head of the Secret Service, and let the police think she was overcome by what happened. That was an excuse to go back into the house to search the agent’s room before the police can get to it.

Ethel finds a duffle bag full of cash under the bed and puts it in her room until she can figure out what was really going on.

Jesse’s assaulted, the money goes missing, there’s the message the agent whispered before he died, something about crypto currency, and that’s just the beginning.

Ethel is not just someone you’d like as a friend but someone you’d like to be when you are heading into your 70s. There’s nothing feeble about her although she can give that impression when needed. Jesse is continually surprised as all his preconceived ideas about older women are turned upside down.

There’s action, humor, clues, and red herrings enough to keep you turning the pages faster and faster to find out what happens next while not wanting the story to end. De Castrique says a chance remark from a stranger on a plane gave him the idea for the storyline. I’m glad it did. This is a book I’ll read again and again. De Castrique has written several series but this is the first book for Ethel.

I hope there’s a second book, followed by many more, and soon. I know Ethel has a lot more stories to tell. This is sure to be on my Best of List for this year.

I am afraid I found this book too boring. The first 30-40% was OK but after that I kept zoning out. Unfortunately I added it to my DNF pile.

I really loved the premise of this story and it started off like a very fun and thrilling book. But, as the story continued, my interest slowly began to wane and I had a harder time getting through the book. It was definitely still an interesting story, but I felt that the later pages did not match up to the beginning of the book.

"Men might be cunning, but women are ruthless"

What a lovely surprise of a thrilling story. Secret Lives is the story of 75-year old Ethel Fiona Crestwater, who runs a boarding house for government agents, and her double-first cousin twice removed, Jesse Cooper, as they are trying to solve the murder of one of Ethel's boarders: Secret Service agent Jonathan Finch. As local police, the secret service and the FBI squabble over jurisdiction and each follow their own leads, razor-sharp Ethel and computer nerd Jesse do their own investigative work leading through falsified banknotes, corrupt government officials, cryptocurrency heists and a fair bit more...

The book starts right in the action.. a murder, and Jesse and Ethel both witnessing it. As the characters don't know each other well at this point, the confusion from Jesse to find his old landlady being somewhat different than expected is palpable. I thought this was well done and set the story off to not one, but two good starts: Who murdered Jonathan Finch (and why), and who on earth is Ethel Crestwater? As a result, I was racing through the pages to find my answers. Some of the story was maybe a bit far-fetched, but if you are willing to suspend disbelief for a second, Secret Lives takes you on an absolute ride! I loved Ethel. Give me a spunky, smart, witty, devil-may-care septuagenarian lead any day.

With Secret Lives, Mark de Castrique gives us a fun and fast-paced, not quite cozy, but cozy enough, murder mystery, I sure hope we will be able to return to Ethel's boarding home for more whirlwind adventures!

To be very honest I didn’t like this book. I made it to 45% and had to stop. I couldn’t stop zoning out on this book. It was putting me to sleep. I was trying to power through it but I couldn’t make myself stuck with it.

At 75-years-old, Ethel Fiona Crestwater is used to being underestimated. She looks like someone's grandma, though she's never married or had children; petite and a bit frail, she's not a threat to anyone. Or is she...? Ethel runs a boarding house for government agents, and when someone murders one of her boarders, she springs into action-much to the surprise of her distant cousin Jesse, who has recently come to stay with her while he attends university. As he watches her photograph the crime scene, conceal evidence, and speed-dial the Secret Service Director, Jesse realizes that there's much more to Ethel than appearances suggest.

But when Jesse is assaulted and the gym bag full of cash Ethel had hidden is stolen from the basement, the pair decides it's time to launch their own unofficial investigation. With no one to trust but each other, these double-first-cousins-twice-removed form an unlikely bond, and learn that the only thing truly worth risking your life for is family.

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Hard to get through (at first) but as you keep on reading, it'll be better. It needs time to understand and get invested in. Not a fan for the ending, it's the weakest point.
Thanks Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!