The Groaning Board

A.T. Barron and Micklynn Devora, co-owners of the much-in-demand catering establishment known as the Groaning Board, may be as mismatched a team as Smith and Wetzon themselves (and if anyone notices the caterers' passing resemblance to real-life members of the food establishment, so be it), but neither one of them would seem to have murderous tendencies. So why are people being poisoned? It's a question Leslie Wetzon has promised to answer, with or without the help of her once more off-again lover Detective Silvestri, but it isn't easy when all her worlds collide and more or less combust. Xenia Smith, her partner in their Wall Street head-hunting business, is intent on expanding the business AND becoming a Broadway producer AND playing matchmaker all at once. Her new friend Micklynn Devora seems to be an alcoholic and may be a murderer, too. The new man in her life is married, and perhaps not to be trusted for other reasons as well. Although she's used to swimming with the Wall Street sharks, this time Wetzon would seem to be in over her head. Once more Annette Meyers has cooked up a wickedly murderous stew spiced with romantic entanglements, and leavened with witty observation. 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.