Brewing Up a Storm

John Putnam Thatcher #23

by Emma Lathen

Wall Street investment banker John Putnam Thatcher searches for a connection between Kishchel Brewery, one of his clients, and the death of a homemaker who accused the brewery of responsibility for teenage drinking. Reprint.

Genres: Mystery

361 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Aka R.B. Dominic

Emma Lathen is the pen name of two American businesswomen: an attorney Mary Jane Latsis (July 12, 1927 -October 29, 1997) and an economic analyst Martha Henissart (b. 1929),who received her B.A. in physics from Mount Holyoke College in 1950.

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/31/boo...

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a welcome blast from the past! I read and re-read all of Emma Lathen's early & mid-period books as a kid. And then I gobbled up each of her later books as they came out. I found this one second hand the other day & I couldn't resist buying it to re-read, it must have been ten years since I read it last. Brewing Up A Storm is her second from last novel, published in 1996 (one of the two authors who wrote under the name Emma Lathen died in 1997). While Lathen's earlier books are Mad Men era historical pieces by now this one still reads as being fresh, even though it is from that long-ago time before everyone was on the internet and bankers could still be viewed as trustworthy staid patricians, carefully evaluating the credit worthiness of businesses.

Lathen's mysteries revolve around John Putnam Thatcher and his bank, the Sloan. Each mystery is set in a different milieu, as businesses and social movements converge to cause passions to rise, mayhem to ensue and John Putnam Thatcher to investigate the mystery, solve the murder & safeguard the Sloan's financial interests. This time a brewery and a public interest group are wrangling over the issue of whether it is OK to market non-alcoholic beer as a soft drink. These are proper mysteries with engaging characters and fair clues, and even though I remembered whodunnit about halfway through the book I still loved revisiting this book, meeting the characters again and enjoying the logical structure of the mystery, yes there are red herrings but all the clues you need to solve the mystery are provided.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A brewery making non-alcoholic beer is blamed for a young man’s death in an auto accident, leading to protests by special interest groups, a Congressional hearing, and murder. Banker John Thatcher takes a hand in sorting things out. I’ve really enjoyed other books in the series, but unfortunately, even though I plowed on to the end, this story lost my interest about half way through with too many stereotypical characters and not much of a plot.

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

With huge fanfare, a consumer group called NOBBY (No Beer-Buying Youngsters) tackles the Kichsel Brewery, which is selling its non-alcoholic beer in bottles just like their beer line. NOBBY's executive director Mrs. Underwood is forcing the view that non-alcohol drinkers will necessarily graduate to real beer because the bottles look alike. Between the limelights of a test court case and a congressional hearing, Mrs. Underwood is having the time of her life without recognizing that her actions have consequences. The subsequent murder and other mayhem has far too many suspects, until John Thatcher realizes what is the turning point that creates the crucial motive.

I didn't score BREWING UP A STORM as high as I usually do a John Thatcher mystery, because there are too many characters to highlight their personalities adequately.

Read 2 times

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to this book on Audible - see my review there. The narration and technical issues absolutely destroyed the integrity of Emma Lathen’s story. I stopped listening to the hasty, run on sentences, punctuated by terrible editing after 9 of 28 chapters. I have read several of this pair of authors’ books and thoroughly enjoyed them, but this recording is a disaster. Buy the book!

[Lisa Kucharski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah, the old lawsuit,... does non-alcohol beer encourage people to drink real beer. The answer is: murder.

We get to see the lawyer, Paul Jackson, in action. He was talked about in various books but never featured like he is here. Would have liked more Thatcher but the woman who died... was just asking for it.

Now that I've read about a number victims... either they have a flaw with being humane or balanced and then strike a similar response for a person, or they are a threat alone but a crazy unbalanced person.

[Tracyk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a big fan of the Emma Lathen series about John Thatcher, Wall Street banker. It falls in the amateur detective sub-genre, and that usually isn't my favorite type. But I loved learning about Wall Street and financial areas that I know nothing about. Of course they are now dated, but then they can be read as a view of an earlier time. (Written from the early 1960's through the 1990's.)

[Vicki Cline · Rating 4 out of 5]

The leader of a group agitating against a non-alcoholic beer (because it's a gateway to alcohol for kids) is murdered and John Thatcher of Sloan Bank deduces whodunit, as usual. This one had a lot of interesting characters - business people, politicians and ordinary housewives. It's usually pretty easy figuring out who the victim will be, and sometimes I can guess the killer.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

#23 in the John Putnam Thatcher series. Penultimate book in the banker / detective series.

John Putnam Thatcher mystery - Madeleine Underwood, the egocentric director of NOBBY (NO Beer Buying Youngsters), pits her organization against Kichsel Brewery's new non-alcoholic beer, Quax. She has plenty of enemies; who killed her, and why?

[Helen Fleischer · Rating 5 out of 5]

excellent distraction while playing utterly fair with clues