Murder on a Hot Tin Roof
By Amanda Matetsky (Penguin, 2006)
A chick-lit mystery—not cozy; perky, cocktailed-fueled—which paints its historical backdrops so colorfully it had me reaching for the history books to check whether all the theater and film references could conceivably have lined up so beautifully in real life. At one point the crimesolver, Paige Turner (uh-huh) and her pal Abby pretend to be extras in the Broadway production of William Inge’s Bus Stop so they can sneak into the nearby theater where Ben Gazzara is starring in Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is playing. Yes, that could have happened. Perhaps other details couldn’t’ve (was the 1954 film Dial M for Murder “still playing at the Waverly” when Bus Stop and Cat were on the boards in 1955-56?), but it really doesn’t matter. Amanda Matetsky makes old Broadway glow anew, with the day-glo hues of contemporary comic mysteries. Gazzara actually figures in the mystery, as do Lee Strassberg, Elia Kazan and other names you find in the history books but not usually in peppy crime yarns.