Five unlikely friends set out to stop a murder and end up doing the only decent thing… becoming international art smugglers!
Every Wednesday, the five Ladies of the Italian Class meet to nibble homemade pastries and study Italiano. Not exactly your typical criminals.
Unstoppable Beatrice is 81 and always ready for adventure. Proper 70-year-old Lily is perfectly agreeable as long as she gets her way. Glamorous Olympia is one week younger than Lily — and never lets her forget it. Fortysomething single mother Jane is a baker with a mysterious past. Her daughter Sophia, 12, translates Etruscan for fun.
When an eccentric professor’s life needs saving, the Ladies simply cannot resist the thrill off a deliciously compelling “moral obligation”. Seized by a noble impulse, the professor has stolen — er, “rescued” — a priceless historical treasure from a dangerous billionaire. Now what?
One good crime deserves another.
All the Ladies have to do is smuggle the stolen treasure out of the country, into a London museum where he can safely re-discover it, and get home in time for their annual Christmas party. And they’ve got one week to do it!
Impossible? Maybe. Criminal? Absolutely. But there’s no reason to let a little thing like the law get in the way.
Praise for the author
“…writes whimsically and often hilariously!” – Publishers Weekly
“Stylish, sassy, funny…first-rate entertainment!” – Kirkus Reviews
“Funny, charming and clever.” – UPTOWN
Who is Edie Watson?
Edie Watson started writing The Ladies of the Italian Class series when she was living in a rustic mountaintop inn high above Lake Como. Edie’s neighbors were delightful wild boars with whom she had a perfect understanding. It was humankind she worried about. Having a better view than George Clooney did not make up for the persistent feeing that the world was in a very bad mood. While Edie is not in a position to bring about an end to the pain and misery made vivid on the nightly news, she thought she might be able to make a small contribution by cheering things up a bit.
She has cased a few joints in her day, but she has never exactly broken into a museum and she cannot pilot a cigarette boat. Yet.
She divides her time between Scotland, France, Italy and wherever curiosity leads, but often returns to a small New England town very much like the one the globe-trotting Ladies call home.