Mary Jane Latsis (1917-1997) and Martha Henissart met at Harvard, where Latsis was taking graduate classes in economics and Henissart was attending law school. While they pursued careers in their respective fields in the early 1960s, they decided to undertake mystery writing. Because of their professional commitments, they felt keeping their writing identities secret was essential and the author Emma Lathen was born. Together they created the character of John Putnam Thatcher, senior vice president of the Sloan Guaranty Trust, a major presence on Wall Street. A few years into the Thatcher series, they began publishing books about an Ohio congressman in Washington, D.C., under the name R. B. Dominic. They received the Gold Dagger award from the Crime Writers Association in 1967, the Ellery Queen award from the Mystery Writers Association in 1983, and the Agatha Award for Lifetime Achievement at the 1997 Malice Domestic conference.

The Thatcher books purport to describe life in the trust division of a very large financial institution. Thatcher is one of a few executives who run the bank while the incompetent but socially impeccable bank president Brad Withers wanders the world in a never-ending factfinding tour. Each book examines the economics of an industry in some detail. For instance I learned all about chocolate production in Sweet and Low (Simon & Schuster, 1974), a book about the Dreyer chocolate company, a firm that sounds suspiciously like Hershey. A Stitch in Time (Macmillan, 1968) is about medical malpractice lawsuits. Green Grow the Dollars (Simon & Schuster, 1982) describes the gardening industry. A junior trust officer named Ken Nicholls is helpfully placed as an audience so the senior bankers can explain esoteric financial lore, which educates the reader as well.

A Place for Murder (Macmillan, 1963) is Thatcher’s second appearance. Brad Withers solicits Thatcher’s assistance in negotiating a divorce agreement between his sister and her husband, who is leaving her to marry a well-known dog trainer. Despite his best efforts Thatcher ends up spending his weekend in a wealthy Connecticut enclave at the family farm, the valuation of which is the center of contention in the settlement. Thatcher, an unabashed urbanite, can take the country or leave it, preferably leave it. Before he can make much progress, the body of the dog trainer is found at the village inn, and any hope he had of returning to New York vanishes. Since he can’t leave, he sends for members of his staff and they commence to conduct business from the village while Thatcher investigates murder.

As might be expected of mysteries devised by a lawyer and an economist, the motive is inevitably related to money. The applicable phrase is always cui bono, not cherchez le femme. It’s easy to overlook this maxim because the personality conflicts on the page are so compelling but in the end the dollar wins every time.

One of the charms of the Thatcher series is the recurring characters. Thatcher, his secretary Miss Corsa, his deputy Charlie Trinkam, the naive Ken Nicholls, the perennial fusspot Everett Gabler, and Thatcher’s much-married friend Tom Robichaux are among my favorite fictional people. The series lost steam near the end but the first 12 or 15 books are outstanding concoctions of plot, setting, and characters. Any student of crime fiction should consider them essential reading.