Mrs. Plansky Goes Rogue

Mrs. Plansky Goes Rogue

By Spencer Quinn

Tor Publishing Group 2025

Edgar-Award-winning author Peter Abrahams has penned over twenty crime and suspense novels that lean toward the serious side of the genre. When writing under the pseudonym Spencer Quinn, however, he employs a far more lighthearted approach. Quinn's Chet & Bernie mysteries are warm and welcoming, not surprising considering they're narrated by a dog of dubious pedigree. The Chet & Bernie books, despite containing moments of off-camera sex and PG violence, exude a humorous, cozy atmosphere and are filled with quirky, loveable characters. Quinn's latest mystery series, Mrs. Plansky, fits right in this wheelhouse.

Mrs. Plansky Goes Rogue, the second installment of this latest series, opens with Mrs. Plansky on a tennis court fresh off her first adventure. She's coming to grips with a new hip, a new life without her late husband, and a new mixed doubles partner Kev, who happens to be rather handsome. After an amazing victory, a thunderstorm rolls in and Mrs. Plansky offers to drive Kev home. They arrive just as Kev's yacht, docked behind his ocean-front property, explodes. They're both shocked. Was it lightning? Mrs. Plansky doesn't think so. Then Mrs. Plansky's shocked once more when Kev kisses her. Cops and firemen arrive and it’s hours later before Mrs. Plansky gets back to her condo, the Miss Marple half of her personality already kicking into gear. The next morning she learns from her love-him-but-want-to-throttle-him ninety-eight-year-old father that her son Jack is somehow involved in a business deal with Kev. Which makes no sense, as Kev and Jack don't know each other and Jack lives in Arizona. She tries calling Kev, and then Jack, and can't reach either. A trip back to Kev's and there's no one home except for a thuggish looking guy claiming to be Kev's insurance salesman. More unanswered calls to Kev and Jack and another trip back to Kev's house to find it recently ransacked and you have the set up to the story.

From there Mrs. Plansky is on the case. What kind of case is it? We don't know yet. Mrs. Plansky Goes Rogue is a slow burning mystery, where Quinn reveals the details of what's happening and the ramifications of it all in drips and drabs. Does that make it less exciting? Certainly not. We still get Quinn's wonderful characters and storytelling: an alligator named Fairbanks, beer-brewing criminals, aerial excitement, exotic locations, treasure maps, gold-digging ex-wives, gunfights, sinkholes, and, of course, a quintessential showdown.

Typical of Quinn, he keeps his plotting fast-paced and lean through great writing and the use of a few questionable events which, though they help to avoid extra exposition, tend to strain credulity. In the Chet & Bernies, Quinn gets away with this because readers have already bought into the conceit of a canine narrator. It's hard to complain about an unbelievable twist if you've already accepted Chet's warm, wet tongue in your ear. In Mrs. Plansky Goes Rogue these strains, infrequent though they are, are more noticeable because Mrs. Plansky as a narrator doesn't provide the same immediate suspension of disbelief. That said, once one picks up on the playful style, one can quickly realign expectations and get back to the fun.

Interestingly, Quinn seems to help with that. It does feel like he purposefully portrays many of Mrs. Plansky's interior monologues in a very "Chet-like" manner, with a bouncing attention span and questions to herself that she answers with the enthusiasm of a puppy:

Val gave her a smile. It seemed so genuine, like Val was enjoying her company. Still, she was a journalist, so you had to be careful, plus she was working on a story that involved Kev, so you had to be super careful, but how nice to have another human being enjoying your company! Did it happen every day? It did not. Well, there'd been a period in her life--decades for the love of God!--when it happened every single day. What a lucky gal! She decided to take Val at face value, and simple be enjoyed.

This whimsical style may or may not help readers swallow a few coincidences, but it certainly helps to them connect with Mrs. Plansky.

Finally, Quinn's characters are not only loveable, they themselves love. In abundance. As Mrs. Plansky reflects late in the book while she observes her daughter in the midst of true happiness: "The concept of a heaven from which you could keep an eye on those you loved after you were gone had never been more appealing."

Mrs. Plansky loves her father, her son, her daughter, still loves her ex-husband, might love her new tennis partner, and is open to loving new friends, and certainly loves adventure. At its heart, that one word is what Quinn's series in general and Mrs. Plansky Goes Rogue in particular is all about.

Jim Abbiati is a writer and IT professional living in Mystic, Connecticut. He's the author of Fell's Hollow, The NORTAV Method for Writers, and has an MFA in Creative Writing from National University