The Groaning Board [Mass Market Paperback]

Annette Meyers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 6, 1998

Leslie Wetzon had a bad feeling when her on-again, off-again lover, Detective Silvestri, began investigating the homicide of an old flame. It was a feeling that only got worse when she learned that the victim was a friend of the woman who runs The Groaning Board. Wetzon's business partner Xenia Smith has just hired the upscale gourmet food service to cater an important dinner party. Soon it seems everything is coming to a boil. Silvestri claims he needs time alone. Xenia is out of control. Wetzon finds herself attracted to a married man. And her phone callers include a heavy breather. If that's not bad enough, someone close to her has an insatiable appetite for murder...and Wetzon may be the next course.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Beneath the cutesy tagline "A Smith and Wetzon Mystery" lies a shrewd and funny series about two female Wall Street headhunters whose combined strengths and quirks make a formidable, fascinating unit. This seventh outing keeps the tall, elegant, coolly autocratic Xenia Smith in the background while petite Leslie Wetzson--an ex-Broadway dancer who too often lets her heart get her into trouble--trades one controlling lover for another as she explores the connections between a couple of poisonings and an upscale catering company. Annette Meyers writes a series of excellent historical mysteries (under the pseudonym Maan Meyers) with her husband Martin, set in Dutch New Amsterdam before it became New York (The Dutchman's Dilemma, The House on Mulberry Street). Here she creates a perfect tone--part bitchy, part lyrical--for her tales of more recent Manhattanites. Her last Smith and Wetzon shootout, These Bones Were Made for Dancin', is available in paperback. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Xenia Smith and Leslie Wetzon, Wall Street head-hunters, attempt to work with caterers Barron and Devora but suspect one or the other of murder. Smith and Wetzon, meanwhile, have new business and love problems as well. Incisive and witty.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Crimeline (October 6, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553569775
• ISBN-13: 978-0553569773
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,694,975 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

ANNETTE MEYERS


Annette Meyers was born in Manhattan, grew up on a chicken farm in Toms River, NJ, graduated from Douglass College, Rutgers University, and came running back to NYC as fast as she could. She is the author of 8 Smith and Wetzon Wall Street and Broadway mysteries, using her experience as a Wall Street headhunter and arbitrator, as well as her Broadway experience as Harold Prince's assistant. The most recent novel is Hedging. Her other works: 2 Olivia Brown 1920s Greenwich Village mysteries, Free Love and Murder Me Now; and a stand-alone psychological suspense novel: Repentances. Her noir short stories have appeared in many anthologies. One of these stories- "You Don't Know Me" - was included in James Ellroy's edited Best American Mystery Stories, 2002.
As Maan Meyers, she and her husband Martin write The Dutchman series. There are now 7 history mysteries in the series, and numerous short stories that feature characters from the novels. The setting is New York in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. The 7th novel - The Organ Grinder - set in 1899, was published in October, 2008. THE DUTCHMAN, the first book in the series, is now available on Kindle
Annette was the 10th president of Sister in Crime. Website:www.meyersmysteries.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Haven't groaned this much except when at the ironing board., October 10, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Groaning Board (Hardcover)

One of the best parts of this series has usually been the realization of Leslie's emotional growth and personal assertiveness. Yet I felt this book portrays her regression into a teenybopper mindset who easily hops into a relationship with a man with definitely sinister connections. That's not thrilling: that's juvenile. Easily,she tosses over the "love of her life" and, as she did with a former "Power-Trip Lover," rubs Silvestri's nose in it. Leslie's belated visitation (after how many years?) and "oh, my goodness" description of his apartment was just a little too difficult to believe considering that Silvestri does possess the couth to be "at home" in an abode of Leslie's stylish taste, and because of the fact that he is enough of an age that has relinquished the "Early Dorm Room" type of decorating. By now, it's simply a far reach, given his stage in life, that the place would be that bad. Plus, the couple's main differences, after all, don't present as intellectual or societal ones (they communicate verbally at the same level and he doesn't eat with his feet), but on the difficulty of blending their occupational worlds, which is a fairly common standoff in most relationships as evidenced when holiday parties cause the stress of crossing territories. So psychologically, given their extremely strong chemistry and depth of feeling evidenced in prior books, this "tossing away" of the relationship makes no sense at this time. In reading the book, the incongruity of the couple's feelings versus efforts somehow overrode the gist of the book and had a disconcerting effect. Suddenly Les seems a mess and looked like some tasteless relationship-randomizer instead of continuing along the maturation process. But, at least the series was continued with the writing of this book and, hopefully, won't be the last in an otherwise terrific series which has been a brainy and entertaining reading adventure.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not up to Meyers usual standard, June 1, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Groaning Board (Hardcover)

Disappointing ... although still a page turner, I found The Groaning Board to be less than expected. While, fortunately, Smith was less in evidence, unfortunately so was Carlos, the wittiest of the bunch. Another breakup with Silvestri and within minutes (or so it seems), Wetzon has found someone new, not necessarily an improvement. Another sleek "sensitive", rich lawyer without the moodiness of Silvestri but also without much of an interesting character. Let's hope the next time out will see Meyers back to the level she attained previously.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Eats, March 3, 2002

By 

Author Bill Peschel "Writers Gone Wild" (Hershey, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Groaning Board (Mass Market Paperback)

Annette Meyers is a longtime New Yorker and was a former assistant to Broadway producer Hal Prince and vice president at a headhunting firm, and all three professions provide the backdrop and spice to "The Groaning Board," her seventh mystery featuring Xenia Smith and Leslie Wetzon.

This is one of those mysteries where the secondary stories are just as entertaining as the whodunit. Wetzon, the former dancer partnered with Smith in their growing headhunting firm, acts as her own Watson as she investigates the death of one of the characters associated with The Groaning Board, the gourmet store partway through its 15 minutes of fame. Its principals are fighting over an initial public offering that can stand to make them millions, and the sharks are circling over this potential gold mine.

Meyers is a writer with the cheek to install a solitary Fabio in the background of a restaurant scene and razz at his declining celebrity, as well as to insert a quotation from one of the book's characters into the fronts piece. She's talented enough to create Xenia Smith, a barracuda whose cheerful duplicity and unabashed greed manages to retain the affection of both Wetzon and the reader.

She also does for New York City in detective fiction what Woody Allen does in film: showing us the glamor and the attractions of the city that never sleeps. To Meyers, New York is a nice place to visit and you would want to live there, and it is be a measure of the city's place in fiction that this attitude comes across as fresh, almost revolutionary.