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The Sunshine Cruise Company

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The Sunshine Cruise Company

By: John Niven
Narrated by: Maggie Ollerenshaw
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Susan Frobisher and Julie Wickham are turning sixty. They live in a small Dorset town and have been friends since school. On the surface Susan 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 relationships behind her, she has found stability: living in a council flat and working in an old people’s home.

Then Susan’s world is ripped apart when Barry is found dead in a secret flat – or rather, a sex dungeon. It turns out Barry has been leading a double life as a swinger. He’s run up a fortune in debts and now the bank is going to take Susan’s home.

Until, under the influence of an octogenarian gangster named Nails, the women decide that, rather than let the bank take everything Susan has, they’re going to take the bank. With the help of Nails and the thrill-crazy, wheelchair-bound Ethel they pull off the daring robbery, but soon find that getting away with it is not so easy.

The Sunshine Cruise Company is a sharp satire on friendship, ageing, the English middle classes and the housing bubble from one of Britain's sharpest and funniest writers.

 Crime Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Satire Comedy Fiction Witty Funny Feel-Good Exciting Crime Banking
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Critic reviews

A hearty bloodstained handshake, then, for John Niven’s The Sunshine Cruise Company ... sparky, unfussy writing; a fast-moving plot; and, most notably, an ability to be thoroughly outspoken about matters sexual and scatological whilst retaining a surprising degree of empathy for the human trials of his characters …Engaging, utterly accessible and boundary-bending
The fun is considerable…a caper…it may well be the funniest thing you’ll read this year.
John Niven manages the trick of being both profane and humane. (Ian Rankin)
Fast-moving, acerbic, occasionally tasteless but never dull, this will delight anyone who thinks old people get a raw deal…A great comic romp with deft touches.
The wild man of literature… [The Sunshine Cruise Company is] Fast and furious and, characteristically, brutal in places.
[I was] hooked by this tale of rampaging women growing old disgracefully…An enjoyable romp spiced up by the author’s sharp and perceptive eye.
Featuring the greatest female duo since Thelma and Louise, John Niven’s novel is a total gem.
This is a bawdy, gaudy, rock ‘n’ roll spree of a book. The first chapter reads like a Radio 4 afternoon play, but we’re soon off and running (or should I say lurching?), burping, boozing, cursing and carousing our way through the high jinks. It’s as filthy as a weekend in Clacton-on-Sea, with the requisite pain and loss hidden just beneath the bedsheets.
A rollicking road caper…hugely enjoyable.
A broad tongue-in-cheek comedy that rattles along.
All stars
Most relevant
Brilliant story, I couldn't put it down; laughed out load at several points, best story I've heard in a long time!

Brilliant!

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I love John Niven for his sharp, acerbic and viciously funny writing so this shift of gears to a gentler paced satire was a surprise to me. At first I thought it was like Lou Reed going all John Denver but actually he pulls it off with a bizarrely heartwarming tale of bank robbing ladies of a certain age, old lags, dodgy gangsters and clumsy cops all farcically embroiled in an intercontinental chase that never ceases to entertain.

The Sunnier Side of John Niven

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I’m not too sure about this book sort of a good idea - but way way too much swearing ALL the way through but listened to the end -just ok-

Well I suppose it’s ok

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Good but not his usual take on the world! Thank god for Ethel! Overall though a relatively tame story compared to a usual Niven

Not his best work but still very good

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This was the best read I’ve had in ages, funny, gripping, heart felt and gave me the ending I wanted. After having some time off work to recover from an operation this was just what I needed to put a smile on my face. I laughed, cried, cringed and cheered.

Hilarious

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