Getting Old Can Hurt You

August 20, 2018
The motto of the septuagenarian sleuths in Lakin’s entertaining eighth Gladdy Gold Detective Agency mystery (after 2011’s Getting Old Can Kill You) is “Never Trust Anyone Under Seventy-Five.” They all live in a group of apartment blocks in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where they spend their time between investigations kvetching, kibitzing, and noshing—a plate of cookies or a nice pastrami sandwich is never far away. Their usual confab at the Continental Deli is interrupted by the dramatic arrival of 15-year-old Tori Steiner, who announces: “They’re coming after me to kill me, Grandma Ida. You have to help me.” Between dealing with an alligator in a swimming pool and tracking down the perpetrator of hold-ups at various Starbucks locations, the gang joins in the search for Tori’s father, whom she has never met, and pursues the thugs who are following her. Fortunately, when push comes to shove, Gladdy’s crew is aided by her husband, a retired policeman, and her 40-year-old stepson, who’s still on the force. You don’t have to be a senior to enjoy the fun. Agent: Nancy Yost, Nancy Yost Literary.

September 1, 2018
Florida senior Gladdy Gold (Getting Old Can Kill You, 2017, etc.) helps a friend deal with an obstreperous grandchild.Teenager Tori Steiner has plenty to be mad about. Her parents were bank robbers dumb enough to get caught hiding in a storm drain during a flash flood. Her dad was reported drowned, and her pregnant mother ended up in the slammer. Since there was no room in her mom's cell for an infant, Tori was placed on arrival with her Grandma Ida, who made it through two years of child-rearing before taking off for Fort Lauderdale, dumping Tori and her two older sisters on Grandma and Grandpa Steiner. Raising three kids in a run-down tract house in Panorama City hasn't really suited the tightfisted Steiners, and by the time Tori reaches her midteens, she's had it. So she thumbs a ride to Florida's east coast, buoyed by the notion that her father isn't really dead after all but is hiding out somewhere in eastern Florida. When Tori lands in Lanai Gardens, her grandma's new home, she displays all the winning ways that made Ida flee in the first place: defying, demanding, and throwing tantrums when she doesn't get her way. Fortunately, Ida's got her own group of supportive seniors, led by Gladdy, who step in to keep the peace.Lakin's frantic pace and manic dialogue don't do much to sell her heroine as a force to be reckoned with, and her detective's "funny, adorable and sometimes impossible partners" are more tedious than any of the above.

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