A Few Trivial Felonies by Sandra Sperling

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A Few Trivial Felonies by Sandra Sperling.

“How Many Felonies Will These Ladies Commit?”

Rachel suffers burnout from her job as a counselor. When Nick, her husband, is forced to take early retirement due to health issues, she’s delighted to quit her job and move from Minnesota to coastal Oregon. Even with Nick’s reduced pension, they have enough to live on without her returning to work.

Rachel becomes friends with Ruth, her next-door-neighbor, whose much older husband is also retired. They both yearn for ocean views, which they would have if only a few trees on the wooded acreage to the west of them were cut down. So, with an old lumberman’s saw, an ax and a chainsaw, they do just that, carefully concealing the evidence of the logging venture, their first crime.

It would likely have been their last, but Nick’s health takes a turn for the worse, and he passes away, which will bring an end to the pension income. Although Rachel has an excellent resume, there are no job openings in the area, so she’ll have to sell out and move. Neither she nor Ruth want that, but they need some extra cash. Organized crime, with its kidnapping, murder and drug dealing, falls beneath their somewhat twisted ethical standards.

They choose, instead, to become free-lance criminals and commit only a few trivial felonies.