Wed 19 Jul 2017
Archived Review: VALERIE WOLZIEN – Murder at the PTA Luncheon.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[8] Comments
VALERIE WOLZIEN – Murder at the PTA Luncheon. Susan Henshaw #1. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 1988. Fawcett Gold Medal, paperback, 1st printing, July 1990. TV movie: CBS, 4 December 1990, as Menu for Murder (with Julia Duffy as Susan Henshaw).
From the title you probably already know if there is a chance in the world you’ll read this one or not, but just in case, I’m here to tell you that the title really is all that you need to know. (The person who wrote the cover blurbs, front and rear, apparently never did read the book.)
To solve the case, two Connecticut state police troopers (one male, one female) engage the assistance of a local housewife to help them dig into the seamier side of suburbia. The emphasis is on personalities and motivation; the mechanics of the murder are all but ignored.
To add to this, while it’s not entirely unexpected, Wolzien does have a sitcom sense of humor about life in the country club set. So much so that if you’re not ready for it, the confusion it also produces can be awfully distracting. The third or fourth time our lead protagonist Susan Henshaw knocks over a glass of wine of a cup of coffee in the presence of the handsome young policeman from Hartford — and she’s supposed to be happily married — I was ready to heave a brick at the screen. Figuratively, of course. (Picture Susan St. James in the role.)
It does pick up from there, however.
The Susan Henshaw series —
1. Murder at a PTA Luncheon (1988)
2. The Fortieth Birthday Body (1989)
3. We Wish You a Merry Murder (1991)
4. All Hallows’ Evil (1992)
5. An Old Faithful Murder (1992)
6. A Star-Spangled Murder (1993)
7. A Good Year For a Corpse (1994)
8. ‘Tis the Season to Be Murdered (1994)
9. Remodeled to Death (1995)
10. Elected For Death (1996)
11. Weddings Are Murder (1998)
12. The Student Body (1999)
13. Death at a Discount (2000)
14. An Anniversary to Die for (2002)
15. Death in a Beach Chair (2004)
16. Death in Duplicate (2005)
July 19th, 2017 at 4:30 pm
Since the TV movie came along six months after I write this review, there’s no chance in world that I knew that one there even was one in the works.
I see that they did not take me up on my suggestion as who should play Susan Henshaw.
I imagine that there were thoughts that s TV series might develop, but if so, for whatever reasons, it didn’t work out.
I also wonder if you’d asked me at the time how many books there would eventually be in the book series, if I’d have been even close. After the first two, the rest were paperback originals.
July 19th, 2017 at 10:41 pm
I am no judge of cozies and I admit it. The whole genre gives me a nice cozy shudder though there are fine writers and some very funny ones working it.
I am all for diversity in the genre, and I would like to see some. Like kudzu the cozy as strangled everything else off the bookshelves. THE CAT LIBRARIAN BOOKSTORE OWNER AND AARP MEMBER WHO KNITTED A QUILT OF MURDER is the title from Hell I keep expecting to find as the only book in the mystery section.
July 19th, 2017 at 11:23 pm
I have noticed that the local Barnes and Noble now has all of the cozies in their own section, meaning that you can pass them over without seeing their titles. Or in other words, I can’t tell you if yours is there or not.
Wolzien was one of the pioneers in the genre, no doubt about it, but with that many books about Susan Henshaw, plus seven more about the head of a construction company named Josie Pigeon, I think she had more substance to her stories than what’s published in the cozy category today.
July 20th, 2017 at 12:53 am
Never been a fan of the term cozies. What are they? Modern version of romance suspense with a strong wise-cracking heroine with two men in her life – good guy and bad boy. Agatha Christie with her non-violent murder mysteries?
I used to enjoy the modern pun-titled mysteries. Donna Andrews, the art lover series by Hailey Lind (Juliet Blackwell and sister Julie Goodson-Lawes), and a few others were among my favorite writers. But then the format with its very predictable rules and style became so limiting for the books I stopped reading them.
As a former book seller at Tower Records I know the appeal of these modern suspense/mysteries with its readers. I had a few that bought every romance paperback including Harlequins. They demanded the sameness of the formula and writers such as Janet Evanovich understand that, which is a shame because it ruined Stephanie Plum series for me.
July 20th, 2017 at 9:49 am
I’m not sure exactly when the cookie-cutter sameness took over the category, call it cozy or not, but obviously I was still reading them in 1990. I note, however, that I did not say very much about the plot. Even back then I apparently assumed that the title said everything abut the book that a would-be reader needed to know.
July 20th, 2017 at 5:39 am
I was going to suggest that perhaps Susan St. James was older than the demographic they were going for, but then I was surprised to find that Julia Duffy, who did play the role, was only 5 years younger than the former (at the time, 44 and 39 respectively).
July 20th, 2017 at 10:11 am
Julia Duffy is best known for playing Stephanie on the NEWHART show. Looking her up just now, I was a bit surprised to see that she’s very much still active, mostly in movies and roles in single episodes of TV series, most of which I’ve never heard of.
July 20th, 2017 at 11:23 am
Discovered on another website:
“She [Valerie Wolzien] is alive and well, but is no longer writing. She loved writing mysteries, was lucky enough to have enthusiastic readers, and an excellent publisher.
“But family issues intervened, writing could no longer be her top priority, and traveling to publicize the books was limited. So when her editor retired she decided to retire as well. Looking for a new publisher didn’t appeal to her.
“But she’s happy that she gets to read a lot now!”
http://maggieking.com/those-missing-authors-an-update/