The Deadly Mondaine is a novel that traces the life of central character HATTIE ROSALES, who is first presented to the reader as a more-or-less-ordinary eighty-something year old resident of Shady Rest retirement home in the fictional town of Gethsemane, Illinois. Hattie, at the outset, is disaffected and is particularly frustrated with her inability to get the attention of her successful fashion publication-editor daughter, INES ROSALES, in order to tell her of the source of the funds used for her education. For reasons sufficiently pressing to Hattie, she dispatches two of the Shady Rest residents.
For a variety of reasons, Hattie has ticked off the Shady Rest manager, who begins eviction proceedings against Hattie. Hattie feels she has no choice but to eliminate the manager.
To do so in the manner in which she proposes, she has to visit her safety deposit box in Harris Bank in downtown Chicago. As she opens the box to examine the contents, Hattie’s former profession is revealed to the reader. The box contains a Glock 46 handgun, with silencer still attached, a 7 inch stiletto in a custom sheath, a rosewood handled garrote, boxes of ammunition, a collection of various poisons and a large store of cash. Hattie selects the vial of heroin and a syringe, with which she plans to inject the manager.
The story then flashes back on her upbringing in the Central European neighborhood in southside Chicago where Hattie was a willing apprentice to the her mother, an accomplished seamstress, her job with one of the women’s departments in Marshall Fields’, her romance and marriage to with Emilio Rosales, and her having to quit when pregnant.
After attending a Tupperware party hosted by the riveting LUDMILLA, “MILLY”, NETSUROV, Hattie winds up helping Milly with the Tupperware business, and being recruited by Millie to work for SID, a handler for hit personnel for the Mob. The novel recounts several of their “jobs”.
Back in the present, the elimination of the manager brings Hattie in contact with the last major character LATASHA CRANTON, the newly appointed African-American chief of police of Gethsemane. The remainder of the story involves Latasha getting a feel about Hattie while they together work on the shotgun slaying of a local dot-com mogul at his mega-mansion. Hattie also learns the facts about Milly’s death.
In the end, Hattie’s journey of renewed self-awareness leads her to a kind of peace, and an improved relationship with Ines.