Who's Afraid of Virginia Ham?

Chas Wheatley #3

by Phyllis C. Richman

Ringo Laurenge is the new hire at the Washington Examiner, an ambitious young reporter with the looks and the brains to become a star. The trouble is, a few staffers at the Examiner would characterize him as an arrogant and sadistic back-stabbing blowhard who deserves to die. And Chas Wheatley is obsessively, shamefully among them. Her worries over Ringo have even begun to cut into her love life. Not only does this guy steal other reporters' stories, he also has a fascination with power, and is determined to destroy a restaurant that has become the focus of Chas's latest research. While Ringo runs rampant at the Examiner, plots to crush Chas's friends, and cooks up ways to horn in on her territory, the question becomes not whether he will be taken out, but when and who will finally be driven to do it? For Ringo has made more than one enemy since arriving in town, and in a case like this, Chas isn't even sure she wants to find out which one of them has finally had enough. For mystery lovers and foodies alike, Who's Afraid of Virginia Ham? is a deliciously wicked whodunit with all the right ingredients, served up by the restaurant and newspaper worlds' consummate insider, Phyllis Richman.

Genres: Mystery, Cozy Mystery, Fiction, Cozy

256 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2001

About the author

Recently retired after reigning as Washington, D.C.'s premier restaurant reviewer, Phyllis Chasanow Richman served as food critic of The Washington Post for more than 23 years. Always donning a disguise to ensure her anonymity, Richman was known for her unbiased, forthright, and accurate assessments of restaurants. In 1998, her first mystery novel, The "Butter Did It" was published by HarperCollins to rave reviews and an Agatha award nomination. "The Butter Did It" features amateur sleuth Chas Wheatley, who just happens to be the restaurant critic for the fictitious Washington Examiner. The series is known for its witty humor, deft plotting and insider's look at the world of gourmet dining.

Reviews

[Stephen]

Phyllis Richman is an accomplished writer. She was the restaurant critic for the Washington Post for 23 years and its food editor for eight. Her articles and features appeared regularly in Gourmet and Bon Appétit magazines. She wrote three cozy culinary murder mysteries built around Chas Wheatley, an alter ego food critic for the fictional Washington Examiner. A "cozy" mystery is a subgenre of crime fiction in which an amateur detective, usually a woman, investigates a murder or murders. There are rules: sex is downplayed or nonexistent; violence and injuries are downplayed and never graphically described; the police are annoyed but the amateur outsmarts them in the end. Classic examples are Agatha Christie's Miss Marple and Angela Lansbury's Jessica Fletcher. Richman did a workmanlike (workwomanlike?) job on The Butter Did It (1997) and Murder on the Gravy Train (1999). She blew it in Who's Afraid of Virginia Ham? (2001). A woman author has the right (and perhaps the duty) to address women's issues in a work of fiction likely to be read primarily by women. This is no justification for violating the rules of coziness by using harsh profanity and graphic descriptions of sexual violence against a woman. I stopped reading at page 110 and will delete the book from my collection of cozy culinary murder mysteries, because it doesn't belong there.

[Lisa]

#3 in the Chas Wheatley series. I haven't read #1 & 2 in the series, so I hope I won't be lost...

Well, I wasn't lost, which was a plus. I wasn't thrilled, either, though. Don't get me wrong. Richman knows how to write about food, so clearly she gives great voice to Chas, who is a food critic/restaurant writer for the 'Washington Examiner.' Ringo, a new addition to the staff, starts getting on nearly everyone's nerves when he wheedles his way onto others' turfs, even succeeding in ruining the reputation )(at least temporarily) on Chas' new friends' restaurant.

The mystery was whodunnit, and really I didn't find the answer to be worth the read. I will give it this: the victim is alive most of the book, so it's rather the opposite of most cozy mysteries, where we find the victim in the first chapter or so and then try and solve it in the remainder of the book.

[Jeanne Nichols]

A sweet cozy mystery, Who's Afraid of Virginia Ham? is the third in the series. It is a typical cozy, set in a Washington, DC newsroom. The heroine is the paper's restaurant critic and a new hire is creating havoc with her position, as well as the position of the heroine's best friend, the theater critic. Some of the set-up was far-fetched, but overall the story was amusing and well written. I would recommend this to any lover of cozies

[Renee]

Would have thought this was written a lot longer ago than in the 2000s. Extremely dated, and I don’t believe I would’ve liked the personality of the main character either way, but the propaganda like style of sexism that she seemed to try to fight seem to perpetuate it.

[John Arden]

Okay, with a superb ending.

[Ed]

#3 in the Chas Wheatley series. Final entry in the short series.

Wash. DC restaurant critic Chas Wheatley series - Food editor Chas Wheatley is fuming over the Washington Examiner's latest hire: slick, slimy Ringo Laurenge. He may have the stuff of great reporters, but he also has a knack for annoying just about everyone else on the staff. Chas has been working on a story about America's most expensive restaurants, but she makes the mistake of telling her new colleague about it. She soon discovers that Laurenge is worming himself into a position to take over the story and leave Chas out in the cold. Her best friend, theater critic Sherele Travis, encounters a more vicious side of Laurenge when he brutally assaults her. Chas and Sherele delve into Laurenge's past, trying to find some way of spiking his guns, but someone on the staff resorts to murder as the solution, when Laurenge dies from apparently lethal Virginia ham served at a work function.

[Lain]

I disliked this book so much that every time I see it on the library shelves, I'm tempted to hide it behind the stacks so no one else will have to suffer through it.

The problem for me was not the writing -- it was that I didn't care for a single character in the entire book. The murder was almost incidental, the trip to Disney World seemed so incongruous that it came across as an attempt by the author to justify her family's vacation as "research," and therefore a tax write-off.

The thing the author should realize is that when someone as unlikeable as this victim gets killed, no one really CARES who did it. They just shout "Hurray!" and move on.

[❂ Murder by Death]

This was my least favorite of the three books in the series - The writing was excellent and really, it was a great plot. But the author did such a good job setting up the victim throughout most of the book - he isn't killed until nearly the end, although you know from the beginning he is going to be the victim due to some foreshadowing - that I really dreaded continuing on with the reading. I thoroughly detested the victim and did not enjoy reading about what evils he kept perpetrating. Having said all that, the book is excellent, it just didn't leave me with a feeling that all ended as it should have. Which was the authors point, if not my preference.

[Betsy Garside]

Great for a view of DC restaurants; would love to read Phyllis writing in the third person. Some awkward didactic passages about waiters' income, restaurant reviewing and other flashes of Phyllis's former newspaper-writing trade.

[Debra]

Food critic Chas has to deal with the slimy Ringo Laurenge trying to undercut her job. But, when he messes with the wrong person, Ringo ends up dead. Since everyone hated him, who is NOT a likely suspect?

[Sharon]

I did not enjoy this book; the bad guy was unbelievably bad, the good guys were lacking in brain power and the humor was strained and the conclusion unbelievable even in the realm of fiction. I read on in order to find out "who done it" but in retrospect, it was not worth it.

[Kristy]

That was the longest build up to the shortest murder mystery ever. I feel like the author forgot to write half of the book! Often preachy, full of superfluous details and characters, and just plain bad. Save yourself the time and read a better book.

[Linda]

less a mystery than a foodie/restaurant novel, centering upon newsroom competition and backstabbing and insider culinary dope.

[Kit]

A lighthearted quick read.

[Chris Leuchtenburg]

Light, harmless, well-paced.

[Leslie]

Interesting ending.

[Jocelyn]

Only a Washingtonian could think office politics scintillating enough to found a murder mystery upon.