I fell in love with this author because of the "Tish" stories, but disappointingly, most of her other books are mysteries and very similar to each other. (The main character is usually the same spunky single woman, presumably the author loosely disguised.) The three "old" ladies (Tish and her two friends, the narrator and someone I think is named Aggie) probably aren't even that old. They call themselves old, but they certainly get around. They are three middle-aged spinsters who always get wrapped up in Tish's kooky schemes. I imagine Tish as an officious, less-intellectual Auntie Mame. In fact, Tish has a nephew who tries half-heartedly to discourage her weird projects, but she is predictably irrepressible. I think the writer has to be cut some slack, because they are written almost a hundred years ago. At a certain time, if you wanted to write about a bunch of women having adventures, it made it more acceptable to make them silly spinsters. These characters are so stupid that they actually don't know that they are interacting with bootleggers, kidnappers, mobsters, etc. The narrator gives it away to the reader what is really going on, without the characters every realizing what a "close shave" they just had. It comes off condescending and sexist now, but the stories are REALLY funny. Sometimes, I think there some truth in the stereotypes, that maybe these characters only do get away with what they do because they are so bumbling, i.e. non-threatening.I got sucked in by picking up an anthology and reading the first sentence of a random chapter. The stories all start something like this: "The second time Tish set the house on fire, I couldn't have prevented her because I was busy making sandwiches for the gymnasts. Well, we found out later they weren't really gymnasts, but that's another story." I made that up, but it's EXACTLY that kooky. star, star, star, star, star and a half.
