I
read this book for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge hosted over at My Reader’s
Block
from January 1 – December 31, 2016. The challenge is to read books that you
already own.
Pick Up Sticks – Emma Lathen
Emma
Lathen was the pen-name for two Boston businesswomen , Mary J. Latsis and Martha Hennissart. Their entertaining mystery
series blended Wall Street characters with either blue collar crimes or white
collar schemes that lead up to a murder or two. Their novels were solid sellers
from 1961 to 1997 (when Ms. Latsis passed away).
The
series hero is John Thatcher Putnam, who is a VP at the Sloan Bank. In these
Seventies and Eighties novels he is senior enough to remember the 1929 crash
and not be surprised at anything the Street gets up to. He’s as sharp as a tack,
though, a keen observer and rational thinker. Follow the money. Who benefits? He’s
that rarity in any walk of life: somebody who combines knowledge of how money
works with how human beings tick.
In
this one, first published in 1970, the authors mildly satirize the real-estate
business, specifically the hard-sell techniques relentlessly aimed at potential
buyers thinking of a second home. Our hero is hiking the Appalachian Trail in
New Hampshire with his busy-body friend Henry Morland. They run into a young
couple who have gotten lost because they have wandered away from a housing
development grandiosely named Fiord Haven, although it is nowhere near the sea. After Henry and
John realize the hapless couple can’t tell east from west, Henry goes to get help.
Henry returns with two state policemen who are severely interested in four people that were around when a murder victim was discovered.
Henry
is an enthusiast so he is bent on finding the killer. John Thatcher is less so. The
contrast between the two as they interview persons of interest is pretty funny.
Lathen examines the personality of the victim, concluding that such an
obnoxious guy would exasperate a saint. His first wife observes that he always
took the side of the exploited underdog but always let her do the dishes. Such
were the thrusts and jabs readers of a certain age will remember from
the women’s liberation movement circa 1970.
Explaining
too much of the action would spoil the mystery.
So I will only recommend this one as highly as I have others by Emma
Lathen. Certainly the business environment has changed. But the three doors to
hell – anger, lust, and good old greed – have not changed though they do get
repainted in colors that go in and out of fashion. And Lathen’s witty writing
style still stands up, besides providing unwittingly nostalgic asides for us readers born in the Fifties.
Reviews of other mysteries by Emma Lathen
Death Shall Overcome
Murder Against the Grain
Death Makes the Wheels Go Round
Murder To Go
Come to Dust
Accounting for Murder
Reviews of other mysteries by Emma Lathen
Death Shall Overcome
Murder Against the Grain
Death Makes the Wheels Go Round
Murder To Go
Come to Dust
Accounting for Murder
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