humorous crime novel

In a summer of robberies and kidnappings in Italy in the 1970s, El (Eleanor) and Lacey keep getting waved through police checkpoints because the carabinieri are on the lookout for male suspects. The two friends sarcastically remark to each other that "any four women could rob the Bank of Italy" because Italian men are so sexist, they would never believe women could plan and carry out such a crime. In the spirit of feminism and equality, they decide to gather up a few friends and rob the mail train at the station of San Felice.

Wonderfully fresh and funny, this book rushes along at a terrific pace. The writing is so smart & sassy, it was a joy to read. ( )

After being waved through road-blocks because it apparently does not occur to the Italian police that females could be criminals, several female friends and acquaintances (six not four) decide to rob the mail train. I found this to be an intriguing premise, but it is very poorly executed. All the characters (ex-pats living in Italy) sound the same, and I had difficulty telling them apart. The descriptions of how the characters perpetrated the crime were confusing, and also confusing was how they returned the money afterwards. This is one to avoid.

1 1/2 stars ( )

Everyone knows men can rob the banks of anywhere. It's a no-brainer that men have the smarts and brawn to pull it off. But, what about four women? What about the Bank of Italy? This is the story of what happens when four, plus two, bored, ex-patriot women get thinking about a sexist comment. Really, there are six women involved: Hermione, Martha, Eleanor Kendall, Lacey, Caroline Maffei, and Kate Pound. Of course, they succeed in robbing the Bank of Italy, but now there is another problem. What good is successfully robbing a bank when the crime is blamed on men? How do they get credit for it as women without giving themselves away? ( )

Offended by the fact that women are never considered as crime suspects, a group of British and American expats cook up a plan to rob a mail train. That sounds like an interesting premise, but I found the execution much less so. Far too many women are involved; I couldn't tell them apart at all. The details of the crime are confusing and not conveyed with a sense of excitement. After about eighty pages, I lost interested and stopped reading. It's too bad; I skipped ahead to the end and felt like I would have enjoyed the general arc of the story, but I just couldn't get into it. ( )