The Rag Bag Clan

Margaret Binton #1

by Richard Barth

When a bag lady is found murdered with one thousand dollars stuffed in her shoes, undercover cop Sergeant Schaeffer recruits an elderly local resident to disguise herself as a bag lady in hopes of solving the mystery

Genres: Mystery

Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

Reviews

[Kathy Russell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book

[Lydia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Rag Bag Clan
by Richard Barth

Except for the beginning and the end of this book, I enjoyed it. Okay that’s a little snarky, but the problem is that while the book is well written and entertaining, the premise is not believable, even for a piece of fiction.

The main character, Margaret Binton, gets involved in a police investigation when one of her acquaintances is murdered. The victim is found with a-thousand dollars on her, so clearly robbery was not the motive for the murder. The police suspect that the death might somehow be related to recent high-level illegal-drug-selling activity, but they do not have the resources to investigate. So Binton offers, and they accept, her help in solving the crime. That’s where the problem with the beginning is. The heroine is a 70-plus-year-old woman with no police training and in less than an hour they accept her help. Granted the author has the police reluctant to accept her offer, which makes the story line better, but no matter how short-staffed they were why would they accept her as an active investigator at all?

Then at the end of the book, after Binton barely misses being murdered herself , she takes foolhardy risks that I suspect the author meant as a means to heighten the suspense, but which I did not find credible. Of course Binton and her friends locate the three drug-selling ringleaders, which the police go on to arrest. Fine. However, at the end of the story Hinton is going back to her Manhattan apartment to live quietly as the bad guys have been foiled. Excuse me? We know the criminals know where she lives. Does it occur to no one in this book that they will either reach out from jail to have her killed or will do it themselves while out on bail awaiting trial??? We are supposed to believe that these desperate people will just give up, go on trial, allow her to testify against them, be found guilty, go to prison and leave her unmolested?

The middle of the book though is a fun, light read. The author tells a story of senior citizens who are not highly regarded in society, but who can save the day when their talents are recognized and called upon.