THE CLUB

A recently fired cookbook editor and frustrated wife finds herself at the center of a cartoonish Connecticut country club murder: a well-meaning but uninspired second novel from Heller (Cha Cha Cha, 1994). Judy Price is in suburban hell: Her high-profile publishing job at Charlton House is history, her stepdaughter is a spoiled brat, and Hunt, her endearing but golf-obsessed husband, has lost all interest in sex and won't stop pressuring her to accompany him to The Oaks, his beloved (and unbearably stuffy) club. Then a positive change appears on Judy's horizon in the form of Claire Cox—the nation's most prominent feminist and grandniece of the club's chairman of the Board of Governors—who decides not only to join The Oaks but to bring it into the '90s. Claire's attempts to induct other single women, fire the roving-eyed tennis pro, and replace the lackluster chef enrage The Oaks's old guard. But Judy, hardly a fan of the club's chauvinistic policies and back-stabbing golf widows, has a plan of her own: to revive her career by cowriting a cookbook with the famous and glamorous Claire, who happens to be a world-class cook. Judy's hopes are dashed, however, when she finds Claire bludgeoned to death in a sand trap. Sexy, handsome detective Tom Cunningham convinces a shell-shocked Judy to become an informant for the Belford Police Department, since Claire's murderer is thought to be a member of The Oaks. No one will escape Judy's suspicion on her quest to find the killer, but the inevitable conclusion is hardly a surprise: Hunt and Judy rather effortlessly and melodramatically both solve the murder and save their marriage. Familiar characters, predictable plot, and lackluster dialogue, but fun for the ritzy details: a good-natured murder story with the appealing camp of a TV movie-of-the-week.