Wall Street Mysteries by Emma Lathen - Essay

"Right on the Money: Emma Lathen's Mysteries" by Jim Huang

My fantasy right now is that Emma Lathen is named to head the Federal Reserve. Doesn't "irrational exuberance" sound more like Lathen than Greenspan? Is there anyone who understands--and can explain--American business as well as she can? Wouldn't our monetary policy make more sense with Lathen in charge?

Or maybe I should be wishing for a Congressional representative as earnest and decent as her sleuth Ben Safford in the novels published under the pen name R.B. Dominic. You'd think that his take on fundraising and consorting with lobbyists (described over 20 years ago in Epitaph for a Lobbyist) would be dated, but it's in fact remarkably relevant to today's election process. Of course, the current fad for term limits and/or just booting out the incumbents would long ago have doomed Ohio Democrat Safford to retirement. Fortunately, in mystery fiction, there are no term limits, and we have Emma Lathen and R.B. Dominic's terrific body of work to enjoy forever.

Emma Lathen and R.B. Dominic are both pseudonyms of Mary Jane Latsis, an economist, and Martha Henissart, a lawyer. Their remarkable collaboration began with 1961's Banking on Death, under the Lathen pseudonym, and continued through Shark Out of Water, the 24th mystery to feature Wall Street banker John Putnam Thatcher, which was published in 1997. (Mary Jane Latsis died in 1997 leaving one unfinished Thatcher novel which will likely be completed by Henissart.) Along the way, they also published seven novels under the Dominic name, from 1968 to 1984, all featuring the Ohio congressman. I'm a little more fond of the Lathens than the Dominics, but both series are delightful treasures.

Comparisons to Jane Austen are thrown around all too frequently, but Emma Lathen's work clearly deserves to be regarded in Austen's light. Lathen's prose is pointed and witty, full of droll observations about the workings of business. A potential client for Thatcher's Sloan Guaranty Trust is described as "an exceedingly dubious operation that purported to see fortunes to be made in secondary oil recovery despite their almost endearing lack of capital." Another proposal draws this evaluation: "While we are interested in your model for estimating supply, we at the Sloan still feel that demand plays a part in price changes." Lathen also demonstrates a sure understanding of how things work: after being appointed to a committee, a colleague asks Thatcher what they're supposed to do. Thatcher replies: "We're not supposed to do anything. We wait for something to happen. Then everybody blames us. That keeps the principals in the clear."

The immediate concerns of business may change from day to day, but its fundamental workings do not. As a result, Lathen's work has a surprisingly timeless quality. Death Shall Overcome--among Lathen's finest books--was published in 1966. The novel follows the first application by a black man for a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. Today, that question is settled, but the problems, the personalities, and the tactics that Latsis and Henissart described more than 30 years ago are still with us today.

Partisans of the hardboiled novel like to think of that sub-genre as the uniquely American form of crime fiction, but I think that overlooks Lathen's contribution. After all, what could be more American than fiction that celebrates this country's greatest institutions (a banking system and a system of government that are the envy of the world) and its most enduring values (capitalism and democracy). At a time when cynicism runs rampant, Emma Lathen's work offers a refreshing reminder of the positive (and even progressive) side of the way America works. Latsis and Henissart's grace and humor ensure that their work will endure.

BIO
Jim Huang is the editor of The Drood Review of Mystery and a mystery bookseller. He is also currently serving as president of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association.

A SELECTED EMMA LATHEN READING LIST

Accounting for Murder, 1964

Right on the Money, 1993

Brewing Up a Storm, 1996

A Shark Out of Water, 1997