RULES FOR AGING AND LARCENY

Four septuagenarians who were once a girl gang live out the classic Bette Davis observation: Getting old is not for sissies.

It’s been four decades since 74-year-old Frances Deluca’s New York–based girl gang broke up, following a betrayal by one of their own that almost got the other three arrested. Now the widowed Frances, who is bored, living in Houston, and keeping a secret, wants “the ultimate swan song of one last heist.” Faster than readers can say “Golden Girls,” the four geographically scattered women reunite. Readers who begin the novel skeptical that they will warm to a group of criminals can be assured that there is, and has always been, a method to the madness: As Frances tells someone at one point, “We always did it to right a wrong. Well, except for that one time in the convenience store, but mostly to right wrongs.” Sure enough, one of the women has the perfect target for the gang’s final job: a con man who scammed her granddaughter. The cause brings the foursome to Las Vegas, where the impediments of age (memory slippage, technological inexperience, physical mobility limitations, increased need for bathroom breaks) are offset by the fact that, as Frances puts it, “No one believes we are capable of anything but a bit of gardening and knitting sweaters for the family. We’re practically invisible.” London, a stalwart author of romance novels, demonstrates a fine talent for the comeuppance comedy, although her story also has meat on its bones: It’s about mending fences, the devaluation of older women, and confronting mortality. While the novel is a bit long-winded as it wends its way to Vegas, by book’s end, readers can expect to wish they had more time with the old girls.

A corker of a heist comedy.