From
Goodreads ~
Three wives wanting a new life, three husbands in their way ...
After thirty years of friendship, Pam dreams of her perfect retirement with Nancy, Shalisa, Marlene and their husbands - until their husbands pool their funds for an investment that goes terribly wrong and their dreams of beachfront condos and a sunny carefree retirement vanish. The golden years are looking as dreary as their marriages.
But when one husband dies in a freak accident, the other three women are shocked to see his widow rebound with a huge life insurance payout and a new life in Florida. In the aftermath, the women discover that their husbands have identical, seven-figure life insurance policies. A new dream forms and this time, it involves a hitman.
Meanwhile, their husbands have a secret retirement plan of their own. So when things begin to go awry, they fear their own scheme may have backfired ... with deadly consequences. The husbands scramble to stay alive but they may not be fast enough to outmaneuver their wives.
What follows is a high-stakes tale of cat and mouse, both laugh-out-loud funny and unbearably tense, while ultimately a bighearted look at marriage, friendship, and middle-age. Couples Pam and Hank, Nancy and Larry, Andre and Shalisa and Marlene and Dave have been best friends forever. Things turned sour a couple years ago when Hank talked the guys into investing their retirement savings into a scheme that went bad. Now in their early 60s, instead of enjoying their relaxing retirement, they are all still working and the women feel bitter and unappreciated.
When Dave suddenly dies in a freak accident and Marlene gets a huge insurance payout (and a fresh start in Florida), the other wives can’t help but wonder if the same thing can happen for them. Pam, Nancy and Shalisa start plotting their own "accidental" retirements and find a hit man to bump off Hank, Larry and Andre so they too can get a huge insurance payout and join Marlene. The husbands felt bad about ruining their retirement dreams and unbeknownst to the wives, have been illegally growing the assets back over the last four years as a surprise. Then things don't turn out as planned.
It is the debut novel by this author and I enjoyed it. The story itself was intriguing (and no, it didn't give me any ideas ... ha!). I liked the writing style ... it was humorous with lots of twists and turns. It's written in third person perspective with a focus on the various characters. I liked the characters ... the four couples were my age so I could relate to where they were in life. There were some other funny characters ... Padma, Hank's clueless boss at the casino whose mother in India keeps trying to marry her off via a matchmaker; Hector, the barber/hitman; Brenda, Hector's wife; and even Elmer, Pam's rescue dog. As a head's up, there is swearing and violence.
