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The Sunshine Cruise Company

by John Niven

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694387,129 (3.78)1
Helen Frobisher and Julie Wickham are turning sixty. They live in a small Dorset town and have been friends since school. On the surface Helen has it all - a lovely house and a long marriage to accountant Barry. Life has not been so kind to Julie, but now, with several failed businesses and bad marriages behind her, she has found stability- living in a council flat and working in an old people's home. Then Helen's world is ripped apart when Barry is found dead in a secret flat - or rather, a porn dungeon. It turns out Barry has been leading a fantastical double life as a swinger. He's run up a fortune in debts. The bank is going to take Helen's house and she'll lose everything she's never worked for. Until, under the influence of an octogenarian gangster named Nails, the women decide that, rather than let the bank take the house, they're going to take the bank. With the help of several thrill-crazy, wheelchair-bound friends they pull off the daring robbery, but soon find that getting away with it is not so easy. Setting off across Europe, the team pick up a teenage hitchhiker, get entangled with Interpol and the Russian Mafia, and discover that, far from winding down, their lives are only just beginning. Reservoir OAPs is a sharp satire on friendship, ageing, the English middle-classes, the housing bubble and group sex- Thelma and Louisemeets the Lavender Hill Mob, written and directed by Tarantino.… (more)
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Showing 3 of 3
I've never read a book that was as eager to be made into a film as this one! And not a good one at that. This is a watered-down version of Niven, suitable for the whole family. I don't know - was this a commission or something? After what I've read so far this one sounds as though Niven was subjected to a therapy for language and dirty plot issues when he wrote the Cruise or else attending a gentleness seminar. I'm not saying Niven without swearwords is unauthentic. It's just that this is all so predictable and he even debases himself to the absolute no-go: Writing about farts. No gang-bang or coat hanger fuck in his other books are as embarrassing. In the other books, they have style and fit the rest, here the farting (it's pretty clear by then that the inspector is the bad guy! Far from rocket science) feel put in so that the children have something to laugh about too. I like to think that Niven submitted himself to an experiment ("would I be capable of doing something utterly average?"), or maybe he lost a bet. Yeah, that's it. A bet.
  Kindlegohome | Dec 27, 2019 |
This was ok stuff and you can imagine it as a TV thing. But caper stuff told in a very colloquial idiom sounds at worst like someone telling you a summary of the TV show so it all feels a bit of a hash. That said. I read it. ( )
  adrianburke | Aug 2, 2017 |
What a great story!
It's not only the younger set that have adventures!
Susan and Julie get into all kinds of trouble - bank robbery included.
A lovely story of friendship and excitment.
I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher, Random House Cornerstone, via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review. ( )
  Welsh_eileen2 | Jan 23, 2016 |
Showing 3 of 3
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«Tirati su, tesoro. Fra un attimo serviamo il tè». La soluzione inglese a tutto: un goccio di latte e due zollette di zucchero nell'abisso.
«… Concedimi la serenità per accettare certe cose e le palle per mandare affanculo quelle che non mi piacciono, eccetera eccetera, cara Susan…»
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Helen Frobisher and Julie Wickham are turning sixty. They live in a small Dorset town and have been friends since school. On the surface Helen has it all - a lovely house and a long marriage to accountant Barry. Life has not been so kind to Julie, but now, with several failed businesses and bad marriages behind her, she has found stability- living in a council flat and working in an old people's home. Then Helen's world is ripped apart when Barry is found dead in a secret flat - or rather, a porn dungeon. It turns out Barry has been leading a fantastical double life as a swinger. He's run up a fortune in debts. The bank is going to take Helen's house and she'll lose everything she's never worked for. Until, under the influence of an octogenarian gangster named Nails, the women decide that, rather than let the bank take the house, they're going to take the bank. With the help of several thrill-crazy, wheelchair-bound friends they pull off the daring robbery, but soon find that getting away with it is not so easy. Setting off across Europe, the team pick up a teenage hitchhiker, get entangled with Interpol and the Russian Mafia, and discover that, far from winding down, their lives are only just beginning. Reservoir OAPs is a sharp satire on friendship, ageing, the English middle-classes, the housing bubble and group sex- Thelma and Louisemeets the Lavender Hill Mob, written and directed by Tarantino.

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