Bank Robbers — C. Clark Criscuolo

Take a notorious but now reformed (and bored to tears) bank robber, a neurotic, newly-widowed Italian woman plotting behind her kids' backs to save herself from a fate worse than death--Florida--and a sweet, fifty-eight-year-old widow more determined than most New Yorkers to get what she deserves--a little respect, a little fun, and a lot of TLC. What do you have? Bank Robbers, C. Clark Criscuolo's hilarious, heartwarming new novel about life in its "prime."

Although Dottie Weist, Teresa Newhouse, and Arthur MacGregor met as teenagers, the three have not been friends for almost thirty years. And everything has changed.

Teresa alternates between sadness over her husband's death and rage--how dare he get cancer and leave her alone? Arthur, now divorced and living alone in Rye, tries his best to fight the utter boredom of his reformed lifetyle.

And Dottie, who lost her only son in the war and her husband several years ago, is beginning to panic. Just released from a six-week stay in the hospital after a diagnosis of osteoporosis, Dottie has lost her job; without it, she has no private insurance. (Medicaid doesn't cover non-life-threatening illnesses.) So she's cooked up a scheme to take care of all her money worries, but she has to turn to Teresa and Arthur, with their "business" connections, to help her get the one thing she needs: a gun.

Separately and together, they go looking for something to liven up the golden years now that everything they once had, including spouses, children who cared, jobs that mattered, good health--and health insurance--is gone. Criscuolo's delightfully unlikely threesome is destined to find what they are looking for as they advance fiercelely on "senior citizenhood" armed with a few laughs, a few disguises, and each other.