Mrs. Plansky is a delight, well off and retired in Florida, fielding requests for money from her children until one night, she falls for a scam and all her money vanishes instantly. Feeling like the police and FBI are not taking her seriously, she hops a plane to Romania to see what she can uncover herself. I especially appreciated how Mrs. Plansky was portrayed--she is still grieving her husband, wondering if she is the reason her children are the way they are, experiencing memory problems and more but she is a force to be reckoned with, and I think there is a huge audience for this title. The audiobook was especially well done, the performance adding to the story.

Gotta love when a woman is only referred to as her relationship to a dead man. Add to that the idea that the people who literally invented a technology are completely unable to use it. I wish this had been better.

Who amongst us hasn’t once wanted to get even when we’ve been wronged? We may think about it, but then move forward and learn from the experience because that is what civilized people do. This is not that book. When Mrs. Plansky is duped she has one of those “I have had all I can stand and I can’t stand no more” moments. She goes on a journey to not only retrieve her stolen funds, but to get some serious revenge for she is no ones victim. And does she ever. Her adventure is long and arduous and fueled by righteous anger, dogged determination and lots of subterfuge. I found myself rooting for her all the way and hoping that I at some point have her fortitude. She is a rockstar. Her kids, not so much! The narrator was fabulous.

Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge AUDIO by Spencer Quinn is an enticing story of a feisty and attractive American widow who is scammed over the phone for more than three million dollars. The story is told by Mrs. Plansky herself and also by the boy in Romania who has taken English lessons so that he could perpetuate this fraud in the employ of his uncle. When it originally happened, Mrs. Plansky dutifully reported it to the proper authorities. Upon being told that they probably would not be able to trace the fraud she took it upon herself to fly to Europe and investigate. When she visited the closest American embassy and spoke to the appropriate Secret Service agent, he again told her that was probably not much that could be done.

Mrs. Plansky got her money back although it was just as much good luck as her sleuthing skills. This was a story that was beyond amusing with a few lip-biting moments. It was a totally amusing tale, and a more than enjoyable listen. The characters were well written, the plot was unique, and the author had a sense of humor. It is a serious book, insofar as it could be, and was certainly original. I recommend it.

The reader was Petra Buchard, who did a credible job with the narration. Her voice was good and she lent the proper amount of gravitas to the story.

I was invited to listen to a free audio version of Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge by MacMillan Audio, through Netgalley. All thoughts and opinions are mine. #Netgalley #MacMillanAudio, #SpencerQuinn # Petra Buchard #MrsPlanskysRevenge

"Mrs. Plansky's Revenge" by Spencer Quinn is a Blend of Cozy Mystery and Adventure Fiction!

Mrs. Loretta Plansky, is a seventy-year-old recent widow living a comfortable life in sunny Florida. Where else would someone with lots of money spend their retirement?

Loretta plays a mean set of tennis with the help of a new titanium hip, but her brain power seems to be lagging and she feels distracted. When her banks call asking why she's withdrawn all her money, Loretta discovers she's just been snookered. Cyber snookered, you might say.

She moves her ninety-eight-year-old dad (who's a bit sparky!) out of assisted living and in with her, sells some of her jewelry, and starts looking for a job. No luck. Even the FBI is making excuses.

That's when our Mrs. Plansky decides to take matters into her own hands to get her money back...

"Mrs. Plansky's Revenge" isn't as much a Cozy Mystery as Adventure Fiction so if you're expecting a mystery to solve, you'll need to look elsewhere as the author provides answers early on. This didn't take the fun out of it for me, though, Mrs. Plansky delivers plenty of that.

I adore our MC and despite what happens in the first half of the book, Loretta Plansky's got it "going-on" in the second half. Is this story believable? Heck no, but who cares. If you went into this thinking it was for real, you're nuts, in a good way, of course.

"Mrs. Plansky's Revenge" is an audiobook that's expertly narrated by Petrea Burchard. This author/narrator's has broad-range voicing ability that brings an individual voice and life to each character. The narrator's delivery of the dry humor through this story is one of the key reasons this story was such a delight for me.

"Mrs. Plansky's Revenge" is the kind of book to read while relaxing by the pool or listening to on a long leisurely walk. It's the entertainment within the story that comes directly from the character of Mrs. Plansky that's the best part of this book and I recommend it to those who enjoy a light read with humor that creates a smile.

3.75⭐rounded up!

Thank you to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, and Spencer Quinn for an ALC of this book. It has been an honor to give my honest and voluntary review.

If you’re someone in the second half of life, not totally comfortable with all things techno, this book can provide fun entertainment with an important life lesson. Do not reuse your passwords! Mrs. Plansky is only 71 and in her day, ran a successful business. Late one night, she is awoken by her phone ringing. It’s her “grandson”, on the hook for a DUI. In a moment of gullibility, she gives him access to her bank account to take $10,000.
As someone close to Mrs. Plansky’s age, it was a stark reminder how scams targeting the elderly are a regular occurrence anymore. (Our local tv station gives daily updates on the latest ones and how to recognize them. ).
Quinn hasn’t crafted an entirely believable main character. We’re meant to believe she’s whip smart in some ways, yet entirely dense in others (especially when it comes to planning to hand over huge sums of money to her children for idiot ideas). She was meant to be in good shape (regular tennis) but was out of breath walking up and down city streets. I just felt like Quinn hasn’t been around many 71 year old women.
The book had an uneven pacing. It takes a while to set up the premise, then it moves at a decent pace before rushing the ending.
And one more pet peeve, why did the author insist on calling her Mrs. Plansky throughout the book rather than by her givenname, Loretta? It felt contrived.
Petrea Burchard was the narrator and did a good job.
My thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for an advance copy of this audiobook.

Mrs. Plansky, rich and recently widowed, is spending her retirement in The Sunshine State, Florida. Late one night, she receives a phone call from who she thinks is her grandson, desperate for money to get him out of jail. However, Mrs. Plansky is unaware that she has become the victim of a Romanian phone scam, resulting in all $3.8 million being drained from her bank accounts. When she feels the investigators are not doing enough to help, she travels to Romania to get to the bottom of things herself.

On the other side of the world, 17-year-old Dinu is running the scam Mrs. Plansky fell for. Working under his uncle, Dinu finds elderly victims across the United States to siphon all of their money to Romania. Although the business is making them serious cash, Dinu has dreams outside of it that he wants to achieve. But it’s tough leaving the family business when your boss is so powerful.

Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge was a 4-star read for me. It was a fun and humorous story without being an overly convoluted mystery. Since we know Dinu is the culprit from the start, there is not much mystery involved after all. This is certainly more of an adventure novel, but I still really enjoyed this read and loved how unique the characters were.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the advanced reading copy!

MRS. PLANSKY'S REVENGE, a book I'm having a hard time slotting into a particular genre, isn't going to rock your world, but you will probably have a good to great time with it. Just a solid, fun little book that tweaks your emotions a tad every now and then. I guess let's call it cozy crime/adventure. It's not a mystery, not a thriller, not (despite what the title implies) a revenge story (any revenge Mrs. Plansky gets is sort of accidental).

A wealthy older woman is grandparent-scammed by a Romanian crime gang and all of her money stolen (never use the same password across multiple accounts!), and instead of just accepting it as most people do, she decides to get her money back on her own. (This is actually a spoiler and doesn't happen until halfway through the book, but it's in the synopsis, so . . . ) We also follow the young Romanian man named Dinu (not sure of spelling, listened to the audio) who did the scamming. It's his uncle's crime gang, and we get a fairly nuanced look at how someone like him could be persuaded to scam lonely old people despite being a fairly good person.

Mrs. Plansky is resourceful and determined with a good head on her shoulders, so it's fun to follow her as she tracks down her money and tries to get it back (although there is a bit of the bumbling accidental spy sort of trope in here as well, where things happen more accidentally than they would in real life). Dinu is a poor kid with a shitty family. It also gets a wee bit sexy, as part of seventy-two year old widow Mrs. Plansky's journey is to meet a dashing foreign journalist who is investigating cybercrime in the country, and he takes to her pretty much right away.

I would definitely recommend this one if you're looking for something easy to read and on the more heartwarming side of this type of story (whatever type that is?).

Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge by Spencer Quinn

Narrator: Petrea Burchard
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Release Date: July 25, 2023
Listening Time: 9 Hours, 12 Minutes

Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Identity Theft, Scam, Romania

Mrs. Loretta Plansky is a prime example of how people are tricked into giving information and money to scammers. She is 71, a widow, and lives in Florida. She has two grown children, a granddaughter, a grandson, and a 98-year-old father.

One late night, she receives a call from who she believes is her grandson Will saying he was in jail in Colorado and needed almost $10,000. He tells her of this new very encrypted payment system where the information disappears once the transaction is made so the banking information cannot be copied. The following day, she is contacted by the bank and her financial advisor about the missing money, more than $3.8 million dollars.

Loretta is not the type of person to take this news lying down. She contacts the police, and the FBI becomes involved. She finds out the money was sent to Romania, next thing she does is books a trip and is on her way.

The narrative really brings this book to life. Her vocal inflections set the scene, and I could feel the anticipation. The book has a fast pace, the characters are developed, and it is written in the third person point of view. This book reminded me of the British miniseries, Cold Call, with Sally Lindsay. Loretta’s actions were sometimes over the top crazy for someone her age to do on her own, but it showed her grit and determination to get her money back. I really enjoyed listening to this audiobook and recommend it to everyone. This is a great reminder to change your passwords right now.

3.5⭐️

Seventy-one-year-old Loretta Plansky is living a content retired life in her condo in Florida. Financially secure as a result of a flourishing business venture with her deceased husband, she is active and alert and constantly fielding requests for money from her adult children Nina and Jack for their ambitious (and not too well-planned) business ventures. She also has to deal with the tantrums of her ninety-eight-year-old father who is a resident of an assisted living facility nearby. Late one night she receives a call from someone posing as her grandson Will, asking her for assistance after being arrested for a DUI which ultimately results in her being scammed and her (substantial) life savings being stolen. The FBI is alerted and from what information Mrs. Plansky manages to glean from them, those responsible for the crime might be working out of a small town in Romania. Mrs. Plansky is not one to sit quietly and she ends up traveling to Romania in search of the person/people who stole her money. The narrative follows Mrs. Plansky as she leaves no stone unturned in tracking the criminals who robbed her of her life savings.

I listened to the audiobook narrated by Petrea Burchard. The narrative is presented from the perspectives of Mrs. Plansky and Dinu, a Romanian teenager who Mrs. Plansky meets on her trip.. The narrator does a good job of voicing the characters but the narration does not make up for the repetitiveness or the fact that the protagonist is constantly referred to as "Mrs. Plansky” throughout the story, which is a bit annoying. While I enjoyed the humor and the characters and appreciate the central theme of the story (unfortunately, scams such as the one mentioned in this story are not too uncommon), I thought that the pacing of the first half of the story was rather slow. The Romania segment should have been longer and the ending less rushed. There isn’t much mystery since the readers are made aware of the identity of the culprits quite early on and Mrs. Plansky’s investigation finds fruition as a result of a tad too many convenient coincidences.

Overall, Mrs. Plansky's Revenge by Spencer Quinn is a fun, light-hearted read, with an interesting cast of characters but not quite as engrossing as I had hoped.

Many thanks to MacMillan Audio and NetGalley for the ALC. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. The book/audiobook is due to be released on July 25, 2023.

I love a good revenge story and based on the premise of this one (old lady gets a call from a “grandchild” needing money to be bailed out and instead they empty her accounts) left it in clear black and white for me on the good guys versus the bad guys. So I went into this expecting a simple story with maybe a little mystery. I listened to the audiobook of this one and I have to say it was a bit distracting/annoying for me that the main character was referred by Mrs. Plansky even when she was the one thinking or telling the story. It made it harder to get into the story or like her because really who refers to themselves by Mrs. Anything? The story wasn’t plausible, but it was interesting. I thought the idea was really good and the execution could have been a little better. I especially thought that the story was very slow in the beginning and took way too long to really make any progress.

When Loretta Plansky falls victim to a scam targeting the elderly, she takes matters into her own hands. This is a bit of cozy, a splash of humor with a smart, plucky main character.
Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the copy.

After Mrs. Plansky’s entire life savings is stolen by internet scammers the FBI tells her that there is no chance of recovering her money. Mrs. Plansky refuses to take this lying down. She decides to take matters into her own hands and flies to Romania to track down the scammers. She goes to conduct an investigation but she ends up having the adventure of a lifetime!
This book was so much fun to read! Mrs. Plansky is a delightful character that shows how strong and capable a woman of a “certain age” can be. The book is fast paced, engaging and full of humor. Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge is a lighthearted, adventurous novel that exceeded my expectations.

I found Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge to be a bit of an elevated summer read or in my case listen. Mrs. Plansky’s received the dreaded grandson calling, you don’t recognize his voice but he needs money for a DUI and it needs to be $10,000 in bitcoins. Grandma let me help you, just put in your password and that’s it.It was that easy grandma. I just received the money.Ordinarily that was the type of decision she would have discussed with Norman, her husband of over 60 years but he had recently passed and she felt lost without him. Next morning she went straight to the bank where they told her the money was all gone from her account. She got the police involved who got the FBI Involved and they were able to trace it to a tiny town in Romania. That’s all she needed and she set off. It was a bit Miss Marple in a bad mood takes on the local cartel. This adventure is just beginning with turns along the way. Yes, I can say I would recommend for a pleasant summer read. Mrs.Plansky’s finds more than what she was looking for. Made my heart melt. My thanks to #NetGalley, #Macmillan Audio, #Mrs.Plansky’sRevenge, #SpencerQuinn. for giving me the opportunity to review early. All opinions are totally my own honest views.

Upon reading the book description, I was excited to have this on my TBR list. Being able to reasonate with a senior being scammed out of their life savings (my grandparents get calls all the time), I was intrigued to see where this storyline would go.

I had the pleasure of listening to the audiobook, narrated by Petrea Burchard. Her reading was well paced, however there were times, I throughout that I couldn’t differentiate who was speaking. It might have been beneficial to have two voices narrating instead of just the one.

The storyline itself, while most likely very true and I could totally see this being my grandma, the story feel flat. At times, the story was moving along well, and then it would come to a dead stop, slow creep and then continue on its way. The ending going all together too quickly. It took a while for me to continue reading when I hit the slow points.

Overall I enjoyed the story and would recommend to anyone looking for a story, regarding a very determined female lead and a mystery.

Specisl thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for allowing me to read this advanced copy

3.5, rounded up. Cute humorous story about a woman who is fleeced in a grandparent scam and decides to try to find who took her money.

I loved Loretta Plansky! Despite being a widow in her 70s and recovering from a hip replacement in the near past, she is full of grit and determination. She and her husband invented the Plansky Toaster Knife and had amassed a decent nest egg, so she is determined to get back what is rightfully hers. This book is light and humorous and the perfect summer read if you want to be entertained. Not sure I would call it a cozy mystery because there's no real mystery to be solved, more like a cozy adventure novel.

There were a few things that bugged me, and I think much of that was due to the fact that I listened to much of this book as an audiobook. The narrator is great, but there's some repetitiveness with regards to Mrs. Plansky's inability to remember certain things and with not knowing if she said something out loud or not. Does that really happen? It has never happened to me that I was so lost in my reverie that I didn't know if I spoke out loud. I don't think I would have noticed this so much on the page.

If you're looking for a sweet, refreshing read for the summer, then definitely pick this one up.

Thanks to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the audiobook ARC!

Mrs Plansky's Revenge was delightful. The protagonist is immediately endearing, even though a bit gullible. I definitely wanted her to be my grandma. And the young boys in Romania are fun and heartwarming as well. Would definitely recommend if you like human dramas.

I was super excited to get a free ARC from NetGalley of Spencer Quinn's new novel. I have read most of the Chet and Bernie series and I love those mysteries as seen through the eyes of Chet the dog. Mrs. Plansky's Revenge is told from the point of view of a human, so I was interested in how that would read. What was great is that Mrs. Plansky was just as fun a narrator as Chet.

Mrs. Plansky, Loretta, is a widow in her 70s who is coming to terms with life in a senior community, after selling her toaster knife business for several million. A fake phone call from her "grandson" and learning too late that it is not smart to have the same password for every account lead Loretta on an adventure she had never dreamed of.

Aside from seeing the adventure from Loretta's point of view, we also spend some chapters with the criminals. This adds a depth to the book.

We hear about the elderly getting scammed out of their money all the time, what makes Loretta special is that she decides to go to Romania to get it back. This book was a fun ride with Loretta and the scammers and a quick read. I listened to this book on audio, which was an excellent way to follow the adventures!

Mrs. Loretta Plansky, a recent widow in her seventies, is settling into retirement in Florida while family members send an unending string of requests for money. So when her grandson calls, she of course bails him out... but it turns out that she's lost everything and law enforcement tell her that scammers got it all. Loretta decides to get her money back.

Why I started this book: Love a elderly protagonist so I jumped at the opportunity to listen to this book on Netgalley.

Why I didn't finish it: I struggled to get into this book. After two hours of listening time, we hadn't reach the blurb set up point. And I was done. I struggled with the pacing of the story, not to mention the characters. And it turns out that as much as I love audio books, I won't request them in the future as ARC. It's hard to skim an audio book and I was feeling pressure to turn in a review. This story will work for others, but my expectations didn't match the experience of listening and I had to stop.

Mrs. Loretta Plansky is a wealthy widow who enjoys playing tennis during her retirement years. Having money, Mrs. Plansky is often asked for money from her 98 year old father, her children, and grandchildren, so naturally when she receives a call late one night from Will, her grandson, asking for money because he got a DUI, she is ready and willing to help. Little did she know, by morning, all of her money would be gone, having fallen victim to a scam. Determined to get her money back and bring the scammers to justice, Mrs. Plansky travels to a small village in
Romania. 

When I read the summary of this novel it sounded like just my kind of novel, but to me it fell a little flat. Throughout the story Mrs. Plansky is referred to as just that: Mrs. Plansky. I found this to be almost disruptive to the flow of the novel, bordering on annoying. I also found her family to be maddening and exasperating, especially her daughter, always asking for money and being almost flaky. I cared about Dinu and his life more than I did her’s, and his story is what kept me reading this book. I really wanted to like this novel, but it just didn’t do it for me.

The narration wasn’t much better than the novel, and I think a lot of that had to do with her always being referred to as “Mrs. Plansky.” I felt the voice used was very appropriate for her character, as well as the accents used for Dinu and the others in Romania; however, the pace was a little slow for my tastes.