Reviews of Murder & Sullivan, winner, Reader's Choice Award for Best Traditional (Amateur Sleuth) Mystery.
"In the small town of Oliver, Indiana, a well-liked judge is murdered onstage during a local performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's Ruddigore. The director of the Senior Citizens Center, Joan Spencer, is playing the viola in the orchestra when it happens, and her ties with the judge's family--and with nearly everyone else in Oliver--draw her into the investigation. This third mystery in the series is a neatly plotted cozy filled with deft touches: Joan's affectionate relationship with her college-age son; what to do in Indiana during a tornado; the surreal dream of knowing, even in sleep, that you have to pee. Joan's relationship with local police officer Fred Lundquist is traced in the tentative dance of older lovers, as the debris of their past (she's a widow; he's divorced) swirls about them. A bit of melodrama at the denouement doesn't mask the basic intelligence and warm charm of this series."--GraceAnne DeCandido, Booklist
"Murder & Sullivan, by Sara Hoskinson Frommer...invites you to kick your shoes off, hunker down on a plush cushion, and lose yourself in a rollicking, old-fashioned, down-home Hoosier-style murder.
"Joan Spencer, Frommer's series sleuth, volunteers to play viola for the Oliver (Ind.) Civic Symphony's production of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. During rehearsals, Spencer, a widowed mother of two, observes hostilities among performers and crew, and shares the details with her beau, Detective Fred Lundquist, after the on-stage murder of one of the cast on opening night.
"The victim is a local circuit court judge. Spencer and Lundquist research the judge's court cases looking for a tie-in to the symphony crowd. Confusion mounts as they uncover several links and, finally, nail the villain.
"Frommer excels at creating a small-town ambiance and connecting the story line of the operetta to events aswirl on both sides of the stage curtain."--Edward S. Gilbreth, Mysteries, Chicago Sun-Times
"In her third book featuring Joan Spencer, Sara Hoskinson Frommer has fully hit her stride as a mystery novelist.
"From the first sentence, the reader is totally engaged in the story, interested in its panorama of character and, though unaware, involved in the mystery which subsequently unfolds.
"There is scarcely a dull moment in this delightful book which opens with a weather emergency and includes a murder that no one possibly could have committed. Cleverly plotted, the story is a genuine puzzler as the heroine and her gentleman friend, Fred, a policeman, unearth clues that often seem to point in the wrong direction. This time, Joan manages to get herself so involved in being fair to everyone, and at the same time helping Fred solve the mystery, that she comes close to falling a victim herself. . . . Characters--from participants in the senior citizen center to a carpenter of Amish background and the owner of a bridal shop--are so well delineated as to seem familiar. You may not know them but you certainly know folks like them.
"A really good read. Don't miss it!"--Carolyn Tufford, Sunday Herald-Times, Bloomington, IN
"This is a wonderful book full of twists and turns, plotted around a Gilbert & Sullivan production of spooky 'Ruddigore' by someone who obviously loves G&S. Throw in a tornado, Joan saves a young girl by hiding in a creek with her, gets a hero's welcome from her family (her father is the judge) and finds her own home and the neighbors have sustained major damage. With her home in a shambles she still agrees to play in the G&S. On opening night with 'mom's cop' Fred Lundquist attending as her guest, the judge misses his cue. Good excuse--a knife in the back....These are great books, I have re-read them all."--Alma Connaughton, Mysterious Women
"In spite of its grisly murder, this novel never loses its quaint, homespun touch. There are no strangers in this small, circumscribed world. Frommer's Spencer has less in common with Robert Parker's hard-boiled Boston private eye of the same name than she does with Jessica Fletcher."--Briefly Noted, Brown Alumni Magazine
"Truly suspenseful and chilling finale."--Publishers Weekly
"Ardent Gilbert and Sullivan followers will enjoy the Ruddigore replay." Kirkus Reviews
"The mystery begins as a tornado passes over a park through which Joan is hurrying toward her home. She saves a young girl named Laura Putnam from the storm, and sees that she arrives at her home safely. Laura's family lives just down the block from Joan and her son.
"The storm left damage to Joan's porch and her neighbors had various structural problems with their homes also. If that wasn't enough to think about, the director of the Civic Symphony persuades Joan to play viola for the local production of Ruddigore. Rehearsals begin to take up her evenings and the story unwinds.
"On opening night, little Laura's father, David Putnam, is murdered onstage. He was playing Sir Roderic, and never stepped down out of his picture frame....
"The author introduces each chapter with a thought from various Gilbert and Sullivan operas. 'There is beauty in the bellow of the blast, There is grandeur in the growling of the gale.--Katisha, The Mikado' begins Chapter One....
"The author uses her skill in developing characters so each seems personable, and you either like or dislike a person as the author would have you. Of course, there are personal problems among the actors, which thickens the plot of the mystery. Each character seems guilty in his or her turn. Thanks to Joan Spencer the mystery, the motive, and the murder get sorted out....
"The author lives in Bloomington, Indiana, and plays viola in the Bloomington Symphony. It seems she believes in writing about what she knows; and isn't that what your English teacher told you would make a good story?"--Carol Lee Cole, Precious Nonsense, Newsletter of the Midwestern Gilbert and Sullivan Society