Book Review: Getting Old Is the Best Revenge

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Getting Old Is the Best Revenge     Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Rita Lakin
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Woman Main Character   Senior Sleuths   Cozy
Series: Gladdy Gold Detective Agency # 2
Dell, April 2006, $6.99, 352 pp.

When seventy-five year old Gladdy Gold reported that she thought a murder took place the police basically patted her on the head and then ignored her. She and her five friends not only proved a homicide occurred, they proceeded to find the killer (see GETTING OLD IS MURDER). Realizing that senior citizens are invisible to much of the population, Gladdy and her friends formed the Gladdy Gold Detective Agency.

In the Fort Lauderdale condo community where they all live, business is brisk as they are hired to find a peeping tom flasher who showed his thingamajig to many of the condo’s women. They are also hired by eighty something Angelina Siciliano to prove her eighty-five year old husband is cheating on her. They take the case and find out something that makes her client and her husband very happy. Listening to the news, Gladdy notices an heiress each week for the last three weeks have had heart attacks and died. She finds that very suspicious. On a Bingo and Bridge cruise Gladdy takes with her group, a wealthy woman is almost killed. Gladdy thinks this attempted murder is linked to the other deaths and with her friends sets out to prove it.

Readers who believe life slows down after seventy don’t know Gladdy and her friends. They have more energy then many people in their forties as they live life to the fullest, going places and working as detectives. This is a cleverly thought out mystery and readers will not be able to figure out how the deaths and old murders are linked until the author chooses to reveal it. This senior citizen chick lit cozy is a funny yet exciting geriatric mystery.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner