Reviews of Murder in C Major
"'Ironing for a corpse wasn't Joan Spencer's idea of fun.' With an opening sentence like that, you surely have to read on. You won't be sorry. Murder in C Major (St. Martin's, $14.95) is a nifty first mystery, unpretentious yet nonetheless impressive in its quiet way.
"Joan Spencer, a widow in her forties, has come back to her Hoosier hometown of Oliver with her teen-age son, Andrew. While looking for a job, she volunteers her viola for the Oliver Civic Symphony. At her second rehearsal, the first oboist collapses just as he is about to launch into the big oboe solo in the second movement of the Schubert symphony.
"George Petris may have been an arrogant boor and womanizer but he was also a talented musician. Police believe Petris died of a heart attack until the Japanese manager of the orchestra remembers an uncle who suffered the same fatal symptoms after eating poisonous fish. Petris and his son had steak, not sushi, for dinner. However, a biology professor at the local college has been conducting experiments with a chemical similar to the poisonous venom of the Japanese puffer fish.
"A few days later, the Oliver Symphony's first flutist, who rescued Petris's oboe as he fell, is found with her throat slashed. The woodwind section is being silenced.
"Murder in C Major is an American version of the cozy English village mystery. Sara Hoskinson Frommer writes of small-town Hoosierland with unsentimental affection and an observant eye for evocative detail. The timing of a washing-machine cycle becomes a clue in the murder investigation. The home of the fastidious, old-fashioned housewife: starched doilies, orderly kitchen with crock pot plugged in and dampened rolls of her husband's cotton workshirts to be ironed. Joan does the ironing for the corpse as she waits for the victim's children to come home.
"A lively cast of locals brightens the action. Joan's relationship with Andrew has a refreshing note of mutual respect and affection between mother and son. Joan and Detective Fred Lundquist make a pair of likable sleuths who find they share more than detecting.
"The musical lore provides a background leitmotif for Frommer's mystery. It also provides a vital clue. The plot is overcomplicated, and it takes a staged, melodramatic re-enactment to explain how the first murder was done.
"However, Frommer reserves a surprise twist for the end after repeated hints that the motivation for the murders can be traced to a swimming pool accident 20 years earlier. Murder in C Major is a virtuoso debut by a new writer."--Washington Post Book World.
"After her husband's death, Joan Spencer moves back to her Indiana home town with her teenaged son. On her first night of practice with the local amateur orchestra, an oboist dies a strange death and the following week a flutist is found dead of knife wounds. Detective Lieutenant Fred Lundquist, tracing the murderer through byways strewn with oversized red herrings, begins to rely on Joan's cheerful good sense as well as the intelligence she picks up in her job as director of the senior center. They discover that the current crimes are rooted in an incident of negligence which occurred 20 years earlier and half a continent away. This middle-aged heroine and her handsome partner are refreshing, even though the plot they move in is a little too intricate and overly neat."--Publishers Weekly
"A pleasantly unassuming, tidily plotted debut focused on 40-ish widow Joan Spencer, who's back in Oliver, Indiana, her childhood home, with teen-aged son Andrew.
"She soon settles in with a job at the Senior Citizens center, meets a few old acquaintances and finds a place to play viola with the local symphony--which includes other local amateurs such as county prosecutor Sam Wade, who plays second oboe; boorish lady-killer George Petris, who's on first oboe; short-tempered, elderly bassoonist Elmer Rush, who helps care for his brain-damaged granddaughter.
"Joan is sitting near Petris when he's stricken by what looks like a fatal heart attack. But aspects of it remind orchestra manager Yoichi Nakamura of his uncle's death by poisonous fish; and burly, handsome police detective Fred Lundquist is soon convinced it's murder, especially after flutist Wanda Borowski is found with her throat slashed and Petris' oboe disappears. Eventually, Joan puts some of the pieces together, but it's Fred who ferrets out motive, method, and killer.
"All in all: too heavy on the music minutiae for general consumption, but the small-town background rings true--as do smart, refreshingly normal Joan and Fred. A return visit would be welcome."--Kirkus
"Another notable newcomer is Sara Hoskinson Frommer, who makes her debut in Murder in C Major. Frommer sets her mystery in small-town Indiana. Widow Joan Spencer returns to her hometown of Oliver to start a new life with her teen-aged son, and she looks forward to playing viola in the civic orchestra. During her second rehearsal with the group, a hateful oboe player collapses and later dies, and the orchestra's young Japanese-American manager claims that the symptoms of the stricken man were like those of a beloved uncle, who died after eating improperly prepared sashimi cut from a puffer fish.
"Lieutenant Fred Lundquist, on the outs with the powers that be, is assigned to the dead-end case. But when another member of the orchestra is brutally murdered the case is transformed from wash-out to major crisis. Lundquist relies on Mrs. Spencer for assistance and the two, although painfully slow in figuring out the m.o. of the first murder, bring the mystery to a rousing conclusion with full orchestra.
"Murder in C Major is a thoroughly nice mystery with an amiable pair of detectives. It is recommended for those who enjoy a comfortable read on a long winter's night."--Wilson Library Bulletin
"Murder in C Major, by Sara Hoskinson Frommer (St. Martin's, $14.95). A fine first novel about a middle-age widow who joins the local symphony as a viola player just in time for the first oboe to turn up his toes in what seems to be a heart attack. It turns out to be murder--and so does the death of the flutist."--Henry Kisor, Book Editor, Chicago Sun-Times.
"Miss Frommer writes in the vein of early Lucille Kallen. Widow Joan Spencer moves back to her hometown of Oliver, Ind., and joins the Oliver Civic Symphony. When one of the symphony members is murdered at a rehearsal, Joan is caught in the middle of the investigation.
"Although the plot is adequate, the quality that makes this book stand out is Miss Frommer's ability to describe the changing small-town America. Where once everyone in the community was of pretty much the same background and ideology, Oliver, like many small American communities, is now the home of a large elderly population and an ethnic mix, including Muslims and Asians.
"Miss Frommer, through Joan Spencer's eyes, testifies that small-town America, despite the changes on its surface, is still rock-solid."--Pat Phillips, Mysteries, Washington Times
"As for MURDER IN C MAJOR by Sara Hoskinson Frommer (St. Martin's, $14.95), it is a chatty, easygoing and conventional first novel. University town; widow who is amateur violinist in local orchestra; murder of unpleasant oboist onstage (cyanide); local cop. She plays detective and is instrumental in cracking the case. Why C major? Because Schubert's Ninth Symphony, with its great oboe solo in the second movement, is integral to the story."--New York Times Book Review
"Murder in C Major is Sara Hoskinson Frommer's first mystery and it is excellent. The author shows a comfortable acquaintance with classical music, orchestral instruments (particularly strings and reeds), state-of-the-art biological research (as implemented in underfunded, ill-equipped college laboratories), and people of all sorts. Occasionally one wonders where mystery writers find the prototypes of their characters. Frommer's characters are so lifelike that the question never arises.
"Joan Spencer, the heroine, has fled with her teenage son to a small town in Indiana where she spent a few grammar-school years. From the sale of her house she has a bit of money but needs that for her son's education. She plays viola as a challenge and escape so turns up at the season's first rehearsal of the community orchestra. She is finally recognized by an old classmate who, conveniently, is a chatterbox and a gossip. From that person Joan gets a lead to an old teacher who gives her a lead to a job. Soon she is also assistant librarian of the orchestra, a paid position.
"One of the two oboe players is murdered at a rehearsal (a deed threatened by many since the invention of the instrument). People who are familiar with reed instruments will spot the method of delivery immediately. Joan is a bit slow because the behavior of the deceased made him a target for everyone in town, and all that has to be sorted through. The poison used is rare but obtainable, notably from the local college, where it is used in olfactory studies.
"The townspeople are connected backward in time and laterally by avocation, employment, politics, age, and choice. The story is loaded with cogent information and irresistible characters. Don't miss Murder in C Major. It's a winner."--Shirley Peterson, Reviewer's Window, Schenectady, NY Gazette.
"Here we have a first novel from a promising American mystery writer. It's a well-done, readable book in a traditional form:
"An obnoxious person is murdered, leaving a wealth of suspects. The method is an obscure poison, so obscure and fast-acting that it is not even clear for a while that murder is involved.
"Inquiries do begin, however, and before long, another person is murdered. It takes keen minds rather than violence to unravel the puzzle, but right does prevail. Enough clues are dropped to keep the reader going.
"It's a time-honored formula that works admirably if handled correctly and mixed with liberal parts of characterization and interesting setting. It's basically the formula that has made Murder She Wrote so popular on TV.
"In Murder in C Major, the obnoxious murder victim is a member of the civic orchestra in the small town of Oliver, Ind.
"Joan Spencer is a widow who with her teen-age son, has moved back to Oliver to begin a new life. She has just begun playing viola with the orchestra when its first oboist dies suddenly. Joan finds herself caught up in solving the mystery, along with her son and Fred Lundquist, a charming policeman who came to Oliver to start over after a divorce.
"The main characters are interesting, and there is a good flavor of small-town life and a convincing amount of detail about both music and science."--Linda Brinson, Winston-Salem Journal.
"References to small-town Indiana life aside, Murder in C Major, by Sara Hoskinson Frommer, is a charmer of a murder mystery.
"The story's locale--Oliver, Ind.--is a college town near to but smaller than Bloomington, where Frommer has lived for years. The author's membership in the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra gave her the background for the Oliver Symphony Orchestra, which figures largely in the plot of the book.
". . . The characters are typical of people in any small town, or big city for that matter; you don't just recognize, you can feel them. One episode, with the bassoonist, is so vivid with insight it could stand on its own as a humorous character description. In fact, Frommer sees many of her characters through eyes that discern the funny side of human foibles.
"Frommer's writing style flows with simple, well-tuned ease and the story moves along quickly to its 'murder re-enactment' climax. She writes knowledgeably about the workings of a symphony orchestra, and she did her homework on certain scientific aspects of the plot.
"Comparisons are invited to other similar middle-aged women sleuths, e.g. Kate Fansler, the English professor of the Amanda Cross novels; and Maggie Rome, the weekly newspaper reporter and chamber musician of Lucille Kallen's C.B. Greenfield books. Frommer strikes a gentler note than these . . . but she deserves a place that company.
"Another Joan Spencer-Fred Lundquist adventure from Sara Frommer would be welcome."--Elizabeth Winkler, Sunday Herald-Times, Bloomington IN
"A chatty, easygoing and conventional first novel....Why C major? Because Schubert's Ninth Symphony, with its great oboe solo in the second movement, is integral to the story."--New York Times Book Review