cover image This Club Frowns on Murder

This Club Frowns on Murder

Albert Borowitz. St. Martin's Press, $14.95 (182pp) ISBN 978-0-312-03943-1

A promising idea is buried under heavy-handed writing, excessive jocularity and too little action. When urban history professor Paul Prye and his wife, Alice, are asked by an acquaintance, Rodney Baker, to stay at the prestigious Alumni Club while their house is being repaired, they suspect that the invitation has something to do with Paul's passionate interest in true crime. They're right: Baker asks Prye to investigate discreetly the pranks and the malicious letters from ``a Friend of the Alumni Club'' which some important members have received. Nothing much happens (all the developments are reported second- and third-hand) while the Pryes banter facetiously with each other, and socialize with and question members. Despite the Pryes' amateurish efforts, the mean-spirited practical jokes continue and a recipient of a poison-pen letter is murdered while attending an Alumni Club costume party. Borowitz's ( The Jack the Ripper Walking Tour Murders ) grating witticisms and his frequent lectures on obscure crime facts make this mystery slow going. (Feb.)