Mrs. Loretta Plansky, a widow in her seventies, is settling into retirement in Florida while dealing with her 98-year-old father and fielding requests for money from her beloved children and grandchildren. Thankfully, her new hip hasn’t changed her killer tennis game one bit.
One night Mrs. Plansky is startled awake by a phone call from a voice claiming to be her grandson Will, who needs ten thousand dollars to get out of a jam.
By morning, Mrs Plansky has lost everything. Law enforcement announces that Loretta’s life savings have vanished, and that it’s hopeless to find the scammers behind the heist. First humiliated, then furious, Loretta Plansky refuses to be just another victim.

IN A NUTSHELL
‘Mrs Plansky’s Revenge’ was a wonderful read. It was one of those rare books that I really did find uplifting. The plot requires some suspension of disbelief (or at least of the jaded, cynical way I normally view the world), but I completely believed in Mrs Plansky. She was a wonderful creation: determined, clever, self-deprecating and… nice. Not so nice that she’ll let you get away with cheating her, but nice enough to recognise that the people cheating her might not be all bad.

‘Mrs Plansky’s Revenge‘ is an escapist fantasy about a recently widowed old woman who falls for a telephone scam, thinking that she’s helping her grandson, loses all her money and then goes to Romania, determined to get it back.

That’s a premise so unlikely that, especially when the book is tagged as ‘uplifting’, I’d normally pass it over as so sweet it would make my teeth ache. 

I tried this one out firstly because I’d enjoyed Spencer Quinn’s Chet and Bernie novels, secondly because reviewers I trust liked it, and thirdly because I’m always in the market for a good novel about old people.

This novel works because, although it has a good thriller-with-a-comic-twist plot, based on true-to-life scams, the book is actually character-driven. It’s Mrs Plansky who is the star attraction, and Mrs Plansky felt real to me. Yes, the plot involved significant suspension of disbelief at times, but it never required Mrs Plansky to be anyone but herself. And I was cheering for her at every challenge she faced. 

I think the cleverest thing about the book is that Spencer Quinn introduces Mrs Plansky when her life is in transition. She’s grieving for the loss of her husband of many decades. A man who was her best friend. A man she had raised a family and built a business with. A man without whom she feels incomplete. The business has been sold. The children have moved away. Mrs Plansky is living in Florida, a place she’d retired to with her husband. but which is harder to enjoy without him. Getting scammed makes her feel foolish and vulnerable and then very, very angry. Her quest to get her money back, the money she and her husband worked together to make, becomes her journey towards understanding the kind of person she is and the life she now wants to lead. 

Better still, all of that is delivered with humour, sharp observations on the indignities of growing old and exciting plot twists that kept me turning the pages.

I also liked that this wasn’t a story of American triumphalism with a tough old lady going and teaching those nasty, criminal foreigners a lesson. Part of the charm of the book is that not all of those criminals are nasty and not all of thoseforeigners are criminals. It’s Mrs Plansky’s ability to see these people clearly which enables her to succeed.

I think Spence Quinn has hit gold with this. I’ve already bought the next book, ‘Mrs Plansky Goes Rogue’ (2025).

I recommend the audiobook version of ‘Mrs Plansky’s Revenge‘. I thought Petrea Burchard’s pacing and tone brought out the best in the book. Click on the YouTube link below to hear a sample.

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