The Last Stop

The Last Stop Retirement Home Series, Book 1

By: Kirt J. Boyd

Narrated by: Rozanne Devine

Enter the idyllic world of the Last Stop Retirement Community!

You are the newest resident at the Mary Stuart Riley Home for People of Advanced Years, affectionately nicknamed the Last Stop by its residents. If you were thinking about quietly entering your twilight years, think again. And if you try slipping peacefully into the hereafter, your fellow white-hairs will pull you back by your ankles, all the while chanting something indecipherable but that can only mean life! No one ever dies at the Last Stop; they just decide to move on.

Where age is a state of mind and attitude is everything!

So come on in. Just watch out for Holy Moses. He's a 169-pound Mastiff who likes cherry Twizzlers, and he's known to throw his weight around. He has very strong opinions, so try to make a good first impression. You don't want him to put a little red check next to your name.

That's Beverly up there waiting for you. She'll take you through orientation and get you settled. Just don't ask her why she never fed the fish.

If you've made it this far, you'll fit right in!

©2012 Kirt J. Boyd (P)2015 Kirt J. Boyd

A 4.5 Out of a Possible 5

Having read the paperback, the audio version truly gives life to the happenings at the Mary Stuart Riley Home for People of Advanced Years. Rozanne Devine's narration of the book is excellent.

This is a laugh-out-loud book that provides very funny glimpses of the daily happenings in a home for persons of advanced years. The residents and the staff are quirky and capable of outlandish behavior. The canine, Holy Moses, is a significant nuisance in terms of his bodily functions, but he makes the home a stimulating and interesting place for staff and residents. I particularly liked the Epigraph with its warning "No old fogies allowed!" and its description of the Grim Reaper as a freeloader at the buffet table with a foam bat.

I highly recommend this book for people who enjoy outlandish humor and the spoken word.

Why is this listed under Mystery?

What would have made The Last Stop better?

Putting it in a different category, seriously after an hour into the narration there wasn't a hint of mystery. If you like a rambling character filled novel you might enjoy it but whoever placed it in the mystery category did it a grave disservice.

Has The Last Stop turned you off from other books in this genre?

I do not understand why Amazon/Audible placed this in the mystery category. I'll admit that I couldn't stick it through the entire book but unless you enjoy reading the welcome to a retirement community letter and their newsletter of events or rather non-events like the senior who likes to sunbathe nude or the rambling about whether to get a resident cat to go along with the resident English Mastiff. Maybe somewhere over half way into the book something happens but I never made it that far.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Rozanne Devine?

I have no problems with the narrator, it is her material that I fault.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Last Stop?

Didn't finish it so couldn't say.

Any additional comments?

This is another in what is getting to be a long list of books that are placed in the mystery genre that don't belong in it. As a general story of folks in a retirement community it is mildly amusing but there is nothing in it that conforms to the mystery genre.