POPPY MONTGOMERY GETS EVEN

YA veteran Jack’s first novel for adults showcases a geriatric heroine acting a lot like a tween.

After an opening flourish that follows the last thoughts of Cynthia Rhodes after she’s thrown from her 10th-floor balcony at Xanadu, the retirement community where she lives, the story settles into the first-person narrative of Poppy Montgomery, a depressive loner of 80 who has nothing nice to say about her ex-husbands, her daughter, or most of her acquaintances (to call them friends would be pushing it). Even retired kindergarten teacher Ginny Anderson, an immensely kind person, bothers Poppy at first because she’s too nice. Nonetheless, the two bond over their shared dislike of Max Schelling, an overbearing female ex-swimmer who dominates their water aerobics class physically and temperamentally. Somebody clearly has to teach Max a lesson, and Poppy is just the person. Successfully shaming the bully in front of their whole class is only a warm-up for a much bigger job. Poppy is convinced that Cristóbal Rios, a Miami restaurant owner Ginny’s met on the website Senior Moments, is a fraud out to scam her new pal, and she enlists Jeremy, the geeky grandson she’s never had much use for, to expose him. Ginny’s not easy to persuade, but eventually she reluctantly falls in with Poppy’s elaborate scheme to turn the tables on Cristóbal, or whatever his name is, and bilk him out of the money he’s trying to get Ginny to launder. The murders continue, but they’re not prominent enough to bother anyone. Poppy’s acid tongue lifts her debut above other senior-living-facility entries. The only problem is that the happy ending requires her to do some truly awkward backpedaling. What a shame.

Just the thing to whet your appetite for retirement and old age.