Miss Gazillions Hardback - 2005

""That"---she said regally, in the direction of the coffin being wheeled offstage---"that can be delivered later. Let's go." Lydia gave a queenly toss of her head, careful not to lose its invisible crown. "I need some fresh air.""
"Delivered later..."
"My conclusion: Dad's mistress was bonkers. Out of her mind with grief. "
"- "from "Miss Gazillions"
When his father dies, Daniel O'Sullivan is kicked off his yacht in the Caribbean, where he's been living an indolent and splendid life for the past twenty years, and left penniless. At the funeral in New York, he meets Lydia Sands, his late dad's mistress. Lydia, a mature beauty, tells Daniel, "The coffin's all yours." Good old Dad wanted to be buried out at sea but must wait till Daniel can afford to ship him there.
As a sort of compensation, Dad's sketchy creditors have given Daniel a job. He is forced to eke out his existence in snow-covered Park Slope, Brooklyn, working as a landlord, Dad's coffin serving as his living room's centerpiece. As he schemes up ways to get back to his tropical paradise, the beautiful and mysterious young woman in the upstairs apartment comes to him for help. Celeste is the only person able to walk away from a horrible car accident that also involves a secretary of the treasury, a former U.S. attorney general, and an infamous Colombian cocaine dealer. She's salvaged two bags from the wreck and they're filled with loot.
Now, joined at the hip, Daniel and Celeste embark on a whirlwind May/September love affair. Coached by Lydia and her paramour, a defrocked Italian cardinal who's an expert in tricky finance, they romp around Europe, dodging the law and evading mobsters. Celeste's surprise legacy has opened up a fabulous life for them, but it could also get them killed.
Highly polished, funny, and suspenseful, "Miss Gazillions" is a sophisticated comic thriller in the best caper tradition.