The Bag Lady War

By Carol Leonard SeCoy and Leonard Secoy Carol Leonard Secoy

Book Overview

Tired of fending off street thugs and worried about the day they can no longer take care of themselves, three elderly widows, Josie, Mabel and Mil, concoct the perfect plan for ensuring their safety,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 145022055X
• ISBN13: 9781450220552
• Release Date: May 2010
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

The Bag Lady War

A most delicious, witty mystery cloaked in satire! These old gals have cooked up the most proactive and imaginative solution to their predicament ever known! SeCoy dandles the reader, begging for more, between high drama and a belly laugh. When you are 80-something years old, why not live in prison, where there is security, free food and medical care, and the company of other, younger women? Our heroines have been accosted on all sides by street criminals and are barely squeaking by on their tiny pensions - and have nowhere to go anyway. They surely don't want to end up in a wretched nursing home, where everyone is old and ill and just waiting "for the last bell to ring." A delightful cast of characters and a most innovative plot; I couldn't put the book down, and hated for it to end. The Bag Lady war is so visual - it would make a great movie.

A candid look at today's problems

Reviewed by Olivera Baumgartner-Jackson for Reader Views (9/08) Imagine working hard your entire life, and upon retiring you find yourself alone, a tiny step from financial ruin and scared out of your wits. Your husband has been shot to death by a burglar, your neighborhood is being terrorized by a gang of hoodlums, the apartment you are renting feels like a prison and your social security is in jeopardy, since the local political bigwigs clearly believe that the money would be better spent on more jails and other "corrective measures" for criminals. What in the world is a senior citizen in such a dire situation supposed to do? Well, if your name is Josie, Mabel or Mil, you might come up with a truly ingenious plan: spending the rest of your life in a safe and secure place, with free meals, clothes and medical services for the rest of your life, and surrounded with lots of other women, most of them young. The catch? Well, the only such place for them is the prison. With government spending forty-thousand-dollars a year per prisoner, the three elderly widows come up with a fantastic plan - they will remove enough criminals from the street to save the government an appropriate amount of money, which would cover their care until they die. So they get guns and get to work, very efficiently dispatching an impressive number of thugs and covering their dead faces with grocery bags. The detectives in charge are utterly stumped by this latest crime wave, until the ladies give themselves up and explain their motives. Carol Leonard SeCoy's "The Bag Lady War" touches many a raw nerve. The three heroines might possess a peculiarly twisted logic, but the reader has to ask him or herself what is wrong with our society if the criminals are treated better than the honest senior citizens; and the amounts spent on them are so much higher than the available funds for seniors. Josie, Mabel and Mil also touch on many other problems of today's society, from lack of parental involvement, the question of euthanasia and better use for abandoned military bases to low self-esteem bringing certain people into serious trouble. They do not mince their words and they have something to say on just about every topic. Lovable, wacky and incredibly real, those three are some of the most endearing heroines I've encountered in a long time. Crazily funny and written in an engaging, fluid style, "The Bag Lady War" by Carol Leonard SeCoy forces the reader to stop and reexamine the world we are living in. Although labeled as a satire, this is a book that hits close to home, and it packs a punch.

Both Fun and Provocative

Start reading this book at your own risk --- it's addictive and you'll have a hard time putting it down. Part political satire, part political treatise, and part caper, The Bag Lady War defies easy categorization. I enjoyed the first two-thirds of the book more than the last section. Nevertheless, by the time I was on page 50, I was envisioning the movie. Carol L. SeCoy, send your agent to Hollywood!

A New Look at Little Old Ladies!

I just finished this book and it's a very good read. Thought-provoking but light-hearted, it provides an interesting fresh look into some very serious problems in our society. I was torn between laughing out loud and being angry at a society that has gotten itself into such a state. I'd love to see it made into a movie, with some of our great "mature" stars playing the roles of the ladies--sort of "The Full Monty" look into the problems of aging. Right up there with Carl Hiassen and Elmore Leonard!

Timely social satire

For anyone who is aware of how our society discards its elderly and coddles its lawbreakers, this book will get you cheering. A couple of old women accomplish what we all wish we could do, and they really could be our grandmothers. Bang bang! Read it and weep. And laugh.