Anyone who's written a book called Go to Helena Handbasket (and won the 2007 Lefty Award for most humorous crime novel) deserves a second look. Here, Moore follows that first success with a caper book. As with all such books or movies, the first order of business is the gathering of the miscreants. In this caper, however, many are working at cross-purposes, not as a team. Letty and Dora, old ex-hookers–cum-con artists, have become La Contessa Letizia di Ponzo and Signora Teodora Grisiola. They've long been been working a grift that has paid good dividends, and are now ensconced in a castle in Glasgow. They are joined by a young woman who acts as seducer, secretary or whatever else is needed. And they've decided to steal a pair of gold, jewel-encrusted Shih-Tzu dog statuettes from a West End museum--worth an estimated £15 million, a tidy nest egg for the old girls' future.
Also in on the act, for one reason or another, are two morons who work in a local crematorium; a very dodgy chauffeur hired by Letty and Dora who's on to them almost immediately; and a naive young man from the island of Creagsaigh who wants to convince the museum to return the dogs to their rightful owners in Tibet. Lurking in the background is Victor Stanislav, newly arrived from Australia, where the old girls took him for a fortune. He is bent on revenge and has the cold assassin's heart necessary to enact it. Just for good measure, the museum director recently dumped his girlfriend and fired her, so she decides to steal the dogs, replace them with fakes and embarrass the boss.
This is a mighty cast of characters and the story jumps from one set to another fast enough to give the reader whiplash. There is a full complement of Glaswegian slang and argot--amusing if obscure. The crematorium idiots use most of the street slang, making them the equivalent of Shakespearean ruffians.
Once all are assembled, the game's afoot. When they are all in the museum hiding and disarming alarms, it is very funny. (Is someone writing the screenplay? The storyboard would need about 10,000 Post-It notes.) There is murder, mayhem and a snapper at the end. It's all hilarious and exhausting; you can't help but love The Old Dogs.--Valerie Ryan
Shelf Talker: A caper novel involving the theft of jeweled Shih-Tzu dogs from a Glasgow museum by too many people to count. Funny and filled with Glasgow patter by an author with a good ear for dialogue--in any dialect.
Shelf Awareness welcomes new regular reviewer Valerie Ryan. Ryan says, "A lifelong addiction to reading, for which there is no 12-step program, led me to bookstore ownership. For the past 15 years, my bookstore has been Cannon Beach Book Company on the Oregon Coast. I have enjoyed PNBA, ABA and the other booksellers in the Northwest. We are a hardy, hearty, fun-loving crew. Happy to be joining Shelf Awareness!"