Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge

Edgar winner Quinn (a pseudonym for Peter Abrams, author of the Chet and Bernie mysteries) launches a new series with this sprightly adventure featuring 71-year-old Loretta Plansky, a rich Florida widow. She and her husband, Norm, made millions by inventing the toaster knife (a device that toasts bread as it slices), and she now spends her days playing tennis, dealing with the expensive rest home that cares for her 98-year-old father, and shrewdly sidestepping investment pitches from her grown children. Late one night, Loretta receives a phone call from someone claiming to be her beloved grandson, who says he’s been arrested for driving while intoxicated and needs bail money. Loretta turns over her bank details, and the following morning, discovers that all of her accounts have been cleaned out. The FBI tells her there’s nothing they can do to retrieve the three million dollars she’s lost: their only clue is that the perpetrators are located in the small village of Alba Gemina, Romania. With financial pressure mounting, Loretta sets off for Romania herself, determined to shake down the criminals who took her frailty for granted. Mrs. Plansky is a wonderfully memorable heroine, full of wit and equally plausible as an ace tennis player and a motorcycle-driving detective with Romanian gangsters hot on her tail. Readers will be eager to see what Mrs. Plansky gets up to next. (July)