Thu 14 Dec 2023
An Archived Mystery Review by Barry Gardner: EMMA LATHEN – Brewing Up a Storm.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[2] Comments
EMMA LATHEN – Brewing Up a Storm. John Putnam Thatcher #23. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 1996. Harper, paperback, 1998.
Just in case there is anyone left who doesn’t now that Emma Lathen is really Mary Latsis and Martha Henissart, now you do.
Thatcher, Senior VP of Sloan Guaranty & Trust, finds himself in the middle of trouble again when one of the bank’s clients, a brewer of beer both alcoholic and non-, finds itself targeted by an organization against youthful drinking which seems to feel that the brewer is deliberately trying to lead the youth of America from one of its products to the other.
The leader of the organization is a lady who is something of a loose cannon who is in the process of alienating everyone she comes in contact with, friend or foe. The campaign attracts the attention of politicians, special interest groups, and all sorts of other people, and feelings run high. Then there’s a murder.
I like Emma Lathen’s books. Always have. They are predictable in their format, but they are well and smoothly written, and the business backgrounds are always well researched and interesting. Thatcher is not a Great Detective, and indeed is probably not on stage over half the time, if that. After having lurked around the edges for most of the book, though, he usually has a flash of insight that helps bring the case to an end. Good, dependable stuff, and this is one of the better.
December 16th, 2023 at 9:22 pm
Lathen and Thatcher were in retrospect a sort of last hurrah of the Mystery as we had known it from the 20’s on even though Lathen and Thatcher can be seen as something new at the same time.
I enjoyed these tremendously at the time and they are still well written, but for reasons I really can’t articulate I don’t seem capable of connecting with them as I once did.
December 17th, 2023 at 9:43 pm
The novels had to have been popular with a lot of readers back then, but they always seemed a little … old-fashioned? … to me at the time. I have a feeling that they’d feel even more so today.
And no, like you, David, I can’t put into words what I mean by “old fashioned” either. Having not read any of then in over 20 years now, probably longer, it’s the best phrase I’ve been able to come up with, and probably unfairly to the books.