‘A Senior Citizen’s Guide to Life on the Run’

Author Gwen Florio tells a cozy adventure-mystery, albeit with an indirect style, which hampers more than helps.

‘A Senior Citizen’s Guide to Life on The Run’ by Gwen Florio. Retirees find themselves "on the run" as their friendship is tested, in Gwen Florio's cozy mystery. Severn House

Gwen Florio’s “A Senior Citizen’s Guide to Life on the Run” is a comic mystery story about a group of retirees who must decide how deep their friendship really goes. Florio also tosses in social satire alongside a heartfelt exploration of aging, memory, and the legacy of youthful idealism. Does it work? Mostly, yes.

Set in a modest New Jersey retirement community, the novel follows Alice, Mia, Sasha, and George. The four are earnest and good-natured folks who are only interested in peace and good times with friends. However, circumstances have other plans. For one of them, mistakes of the past suddenly catch up with him or her as murder comes to visit.

Timeless Pastures

Our heroes are residents of Timeless Pastures. Although this fictional community is designed for “active adults,” the four regard it as a kind of holding pen rather than a home. They joke that they really have been put out to pasture. Regardless of any problems with their community, it’s what they have, and they’re doing the best they can with it. Little do they know, a greedy and unscrupulous man named Hawk Boneham III has a plan in the works to take over the community.