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The Sunshine Cruise Company

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About this listen

Susan Frobisher and Julie Wickham are turning 60. 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 of friendship, ageing, the English middle classes, and the housing bubble from one of Britain's sharpest and funniest writers.

©2015 John Niven (P)2015 Random House AudioBooks (UK) Crime Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Satire Comedy Fiction Witty Funny Feel-Good Crime Banking
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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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