Dru’s Short Musing:
Scamming a scammer takes center stage as Poppy tries to help a friend and, in the process, helped solve two puzzling deaths.
This was a well-written and complex drama with a comfortable tone making it easy to follow and grasp what is going on in Poppy’s world. The author did a terrific job in giving us Poppy’s views and others as the incident swirls around who is doing what to whom and how can it be stopped. The mystery was nicely developed giving us a sense of trepidation and the emotional wherewithal to cheer for Poppy and her friends and the task at hand, bringing these scammers to justice. The various scenarios in this book had me completely immersed in everything, quickly becoming a page-turner as I had to know how this was going to end. As Poppy takes a stand and works with her grandson, the pieces come together and another mischievous action is thwarted. Bonus for me was seeing the blossoming friendship between the three women who had pivotal roles in the telling of this story. This was a wonderfully crafted whodunit, and I hope there are more adventures with Poppy and her friends.
Genre: Amateur Sleuth, Caper, Cozy Mystery
Release: June 9, 2026
Format: Print, Digital, Audio
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop.org
Book Synopsis:
An elderly woman targets online scammers in this charmingly cozy caper from a “riotously funny” author (Publishers Weekly).
Eighty-year-old Poppy Montgomery has always taken a negative view of her life. Her father? A bully. Her husbands? Losers. Her daughter and grandson? Well, they’re probably her fault. And now the police have taken away her license, her daughter wants to put her in a retirement home, and the bossy new fitter-than-thou attendee at water aerobics is taking over her favorite class.
But enough is enough, and when her new friend, Ginny, is scammed on a dating site for seniors, Poppy decides it’s time to finally get even. With the help of Jeremy, her tech-savvy grandson, Poppy launches a vindictive little caper, scamming the scammers that prey on the elderly online. But when two women at Ginny’s retirement home seemingly meet unnatural ends and her newest target is implicated in the murder, suddenly Poppy’s fun online con job becomes a matter of life or death. It’s going to take the whole gang—Poppy’s two new best friends, her in-recovery daughter, and her basement-dwelling grandson—to pull off one last job, before one of them becomes the next victim.
A charmingly cozy crime story brimming with laughs and heart, POPPY MONTGOMERY GETS EVEN shows that it’s never too late to turn over a new leaf, make new friends, and scam an international crime ring while solving some murders along the way.
FTC Full Disclosure – I received a digital ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.