The Condo Kill

New York City can be a difficult place to live, especially when you're old, poor, and have no powerful friends.

Thelma and Angelo find life in the Big Apple more difficult every day. In fact, difficult isn't the word. Dangerous is more like it. They are the last two tenants in a six-floor apartment building slated for demolition. It seems the owner wants to construct a luxury condo highrise, and he'd stop at nothing to get rid of Thelma and Angelo.

When the noise from a rock band fails to drive them out, the owner imports thousands of cockroaches. Then he tries turning off the heat in the middle of January. Next comes physical violence---"accidental" bumps in the street, a mugging, a near miss with flying hubcaps.

Thelma has lived in the building forty-two years, and she has nowhere to go. She's near tears and so distracted she can't even concentrate on her Bingo card, when Margaret Binton offers to help.

Margaret is in her seventies too, so she know how it feels to appear old and helpless. But Margaret is helpless in looks only. Underneath her frivolous, flowery hats, she's one of the toughest foes a powerful New York real estate magnate would never want to meet.

Enlisting her elderly band of friends from the Florence K Bliss senior citizens' center, Margaret plans a revenge that will make Martex Management and its owner wish they had never heard of Thelma and Angela.

Margaret instinctively understands the evil of her enemy, but even she is surprised when the deadly game of coercion turns to murder.

Lieutenant Sam Morley and Sergeant David Schaeffer of the Eighty-first Precinct lend their sometimes reluctant support, but it's really Margaret who points the way to solving a shocking and all-too-believable crime.

With humor, Runyonesque characters, a delightful and spunky lady, and a vivid New York setting, THE CONDO KILL further affirms author Richard Barth's reputation as a superb mystery writer.

This is #4 in a Margaret Binton Mystery.