Murder without Icing - Emma Lathen
Given the reputation Wall Street bankers have in our money-ridden world, it’s hard to sell a mystery series starring a vice-president of the Sloan Guaranty Trust. But having read more than half of the 24 books starring John Putnam Thatcher, I like them because they are set in various industries: car-making, grain importing, mail order nurseries, garment making, and fast food franchising, to name just a couple, so there’s a nostalgic feeling ‘this is the way the world used to work,’ at least, for the haves.
In this 1972 mystery, the bank has changed its usual sponsorship from a symphony to a hockey team. When a potential partner of the team is killed at the airport after the team deplanes, the police get involved and Thatcher has to identify the perp.
This was written just a bit before the sports industry became the cultural and economic behemoth that it is today. So it is just as interesting to read as a cultural artifact – a shard of pottery, as it were – besides a mystery. Recommended to born-in-the-Fifties fans of boxing on ice too, especially ones who know who Rocket and Pocket Rocket were.
Click on the title to see the review.
·
Banking on Death
(1961)
·
A Place for
Murder (1963)
·
Accounting
for Murder (1964); Silver Dagger Award
·
Murder
Makes the Wheels Go Round (1966)
·
Death
Shall Overcome (1966)
·
Murder
Against the Grain (1967); Gold Dagger Award
·
A
Stitch in Time (1968)
·
Come to
Dust (1968)
·
When in Greece
(1969); shortlisted for Edgar Award
·
Murder to
Go (1969)
·
Pick Up
Sticks (1970)
·
Ashes to
Ashes (1971)
·
The Longer
the Thread (1971)
·
Murder Without
Icing (1972)
·
Sweet and Low
(1974)
·
By Hook or by
Crook (1975)
·
Double,
Double, Oil and Trouble (1978)
·
Going
for Gold (1981)
·
Green Grow
the Dollars (1982)
·
Something
in the Air (1988)
·
East
is East (1991)
·
Right on the
Money (1993)
·
Brewing Up a
Storm (1996)
·
A Shark Out of
Water (1997)
No comments:
Post a Comment