Murder
in High Place - R. B. Dominic,
1970
When combative Karen Jenks is
recalled from a small South American country where she was conducting research
for her master’s thesis, she demands that her congressman help clear her name,.
Her rep in D.C. is series hero Benton “Ben” Safford (D., OH). He starred in
seven mysteries between 1968 and 1983. This is the second in the series.
Ben’s default setting is to do his
best by his southern Ohio constituents. So, only reluctantly does he get
involved in a matter that touches on foreign affairs. Just before a meeting at
which he was going to discuss Jenks’ case, a foreign aid bureaucrat is bashed
on the head and tossed out a window. Ben and his staff are also put in the poor
position by Karen Jenks, who is beautiful, bright, and noisily suspicious of
everything and everyone. Her obnoxious character is strong and attractive in a
novel of vividly drawn insufferable characters. Also, many sensitivities and
interests complicate matters for Ben’s office, the country's embassy, the State
Department, and the Washington police.
The reader gets the feeling of being
privy to a closed world of insiders. However, given the novel was published in
1970, it feels in other ways like an artifact of a bygone age. Political
disagreement is not a barrier to personal respect and friendship, an idea that
seems quaint in our era of the institutionalized partisan divide. The
conservatism-lite feels old-fashioned too. As we’d expect, people left of
center are condescendingly dismissed as strident naïve utopianists. But John Adams and Theodore Roosevelt-like asides indicate the
powerful elite in the public and private sectors are unscrupulous,
undemocratic, and power-hungry so they need close minding and strict regulating.
The light tone is urbane and droll,
the dialog suave and amusing. This is only what we would anticipate from R.
B. Dominic, which was the pen name of two
American businesswomen, economist Mary
Jane Latsis (1927 –1997) and lawyer Martha Henissart (1929 - ). They also wrote under the name of Emma
Lathen, with the series hero John Putnam Thatcher, a Wall Street investment
banker before that job title became synonymous with “villain.”
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