BOOK REVIEW: ANOTHER VANISHING ACT: A NOVEL BY PAT RUSSO AND PETE CONNER

Another Vanishing Act is a whimsical and creative jaunt into the surprisingly exciting lives of senior citizens. Pete Conner and Pat Russo write with mellowness and heart, but add enough laughs to keep the story cheery and brisk. Protagonist Dan, very human and relatable if not exactly a role-model, arrives at the Excelsior apartment complex for the elderly, on the run from creditors. He rapidly becomes the bumbling and overwhelmed manager of this unofficial nursing home, harassed from dawn to midnight by grumpy residents in all states of dementia, eccentricity, and romance. But when Dan falls in with a get-rich scheme of not reporting the deaths of residents so he can collect their pensions, he soon heads on a fast-track towards mayhem, headaches, bizarre incidents, and—worst of all—betrayal of the neighbors he’s come to love.

Pete Conner and Pat Russo have scored a winner in this gentle-yet-quirky read, filled with chuckles and tension at all the right moments. Another Vanishing Act brings a mildly satirical but always kindly view of the elderly, too often overlooked in our fiction and in our daily lives. From paranoid Mrs. Zimmer and her bug phobias, to romantic, genial Mr. Carson, and evil Maggie, every character punctuates Dan’s hectic life with personality and life lessons. Beneath the zany moments and lightly macabre humor, pathos is woven deftly into the story as Dan reflects on the lonely lives of these people who’ve been abandoned by their relatives. The triumph of the Excelsior residents over their consignment to the grave—quite literally, in several cases—gives a warm and uplifting conclusion to this satisfying tale of a washed-up gambler who finds, to his surprise, he’s not such a bad guy after all.

Reviewed by Sarah Scheele for Reader's Favorite. Reader's Favorite offers professional reviews for traditional and independent authors.