Cheating Cheaters.

by John Patrick

Faced with the responsibility of looking after their orphaned niece, Theresa and Angelica, two middle-aged sisters, have settled on the idea of impersonating begging nuns in order to send Tania to art school in Europe, but as the play begins they have run into double trouble: An agile young cat burglar is about to make off with their ill-gotten gains; and a suspicious policeman has followed Theresa (and her collection bucket) home. However all is not as desperate as it seems, as the personable young thief happens to be a medical student who steals to pay his tuition (and is willing to consider alternative means of fund raising) while the cop, as it turns out, is also not above taking what he can on the side. So the four join forces for some inspired larceny and things go swimmingly or do until the supposedly saintly Tania turns up unannounced. Trying to hide the truth from their niece, Theresa and Angelica decide to "go straight," which also, unfortunately, means going broke, and results in a series of hilarious misunderstandings. In the end, however, it develops that Tania is not quite the paragon her aunts believed her to be but the confession of her own misdeeds (she is an accomplished art forger) is steadily forgiven when she also reveals that the rather considerable earnings from her illegal activities are merrily piling up interest in a Swiss bank!"

72 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

John Patrick Goggin was an American playwright and screenwriter.
Abandoned by his parents, he had a delinquent youth that he spend in foster homes and boarding schools. He married at 19 and got a job as an announcer at KPO Radio in San Francisco, California. After being a scriptwriter for the radio program Cecil and Sally he began writing screenplays, and later he turned to writing screenplays.
On November 7, 1995 he committed suicide.