In 1979, Dilys Winn, the pioneering writer, editor, and bookseller, who was one of the true doyennes of crime fiction, conducted a poll among mystery writers, asking them who their favorite mystery writers were. Agatha Christie came in first. Tied for second were Dorothy L. Sayers—and Emma Lathen.
Between 1961 and 1997, Lathen published 24 mysteries featuring John Putnam Thatcher, senior vice president of the Sloan Guaranty Trust, the “third largest bank in the world,” and the first fictional sleuth to spring from the world of Wall Street. The novels were witty, crisp, insightful, intricately plotted, and highly instructive about the ways of the financial universe and the myriad businesses and industries therein.
Readers happily followed Thatcher and his quirky assortment of colleagues as they tackled murder, fraud, arson, blackmail, embezzlement, and any number of other crimes in enterprises as diverse as fast food (Murder To Go, 1969), cocoa trading (Sweet and Low, 1974), parochial schools (Ashes to Ashes, 1971), the auto industry (Murder Makes the Wheels Go Round, 1966), hockey games (Murder Without Icing, 1972), Greek and Puerto Rican politics (When in Greece, 1969; The Longer the Thread, 1971), tomato breeding (Green Grow the Dollars, 1982), the Winter Olympics (Going for the Gold, 1981), Persian rugs (By Hook or by Crook, 1975), and oil development (Double, Double, Oil and Trouble, 1978). You were always entertained—you also learned a whole lot. Everything rang with a clear note of authenticity.
“Understanding money is a rare talent,” Lathen wrote in Murder To Go. “Understanding people is even rarer. Understanding both is damn near nonexistent.” But that’s exactly what Lathen did. The Los Angeles Times called her “the most important woman in American mystery.” The New York Daily News dubbed her “the Agatha Christie of Wall Street.” The New York Times not only concurred that she was “the American Agatha Christie,” but praised John Putnam Thatcher as “Nero Wolfe with portfolio.”
So who was this Emma Lathen who clearly knew so much about business, finance, and the law? For a long time—nobody knew. Her book flaps held no biography, there was no author photo, she gave no interviews. And then in 1977, sixteen years after the publication of her debut, Banking on Death (1961), the truth came out.
Emma Lathen was not one woman, but two: Mary Jane Latsis (born 1927) and Martha Henissart (1929). The pseudonym was created from their names: the “M” of Mary and “Ma” of Martha, “Lat” of Latsis and “Hen” of Henissart.
“Understanding money is a rare talent,” Lathen wrote in Murder To Go. “Understanding people is even rarer. Understanding both is damn near nonexistent.”The two of them met as Harvard graduate students in 1952, where Latsis studied economics and public administration and Henissart studied law. Latsis would go on to work for the CIA, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, and Wellesley College, where she taught economics. Henissart practiced law in New York and then returned to the Boston area to become the chief legal counsel for Raytheon.
It was at Harvard that they discovered their mutual love and vast knowledge of murder mysteries, as they swapped, bought, and borrowed everything they could get their hands on. After Henissart moved to New York, “I think it’s safe to say that I had read just about every mystery in the New York Public Library.” When the Raytheon job brought her back to Boston in 1960, she stayed with Latsis while house-hunting and asked her what good mysteries were around. Told there weren’t any, they decided, “Then let’s write one.”
What would it be about? That was easy, something that took advantage of their strengths. “We decided on a banker,” said Latsis, “because there is nothing on God’s earth a banker can’t get into.” It was also an area that was decidedly underserved in mystery fiction. “We deal in a world where most people work,” she said, but many of the people she knew were not always represented. “They do not go out to a field to dig up radishes; they go into a big, big institution of one sort or another, and we try to catch the flavor of that kind of life.”
They decided on a pseudonym and secrecy, because Henissart in particular thought it would avoid complications with her clients and employers—the candid portrayals of business and business people might leave some of them feeling a little uneasy. For instance, in one novel, they wrote about one company’s “idiot president” and his “criminal” division manager. “We were berated for being so transparent,” Henissart said, by employees of a real-life company—even though it wasn’t based on them at all.
They divided up the work by writing alternate chapters of their book—Latsis on a legal pad, Henissart on a typewriter—after agreeing on the basic structure and major characters. Latsis always wrote the first chapter, and Henissart the last, and then they would do a joint rewrite to eliminate any inconsistencies.
The first thing they agreed on was their principal continuing characters—the stock company of the Sloan Guaranty Trust. Thatcher early on was dubbed a “youthful sixty” and that never changed throughout the series. Thatcher was wry but unsentimental, and combined a clear-headed knowledge of business and human nature with a natural curiosity. He usually got involved in cases, sometimes against his will, because the Sloan had a vested interest in it, and from there he went where the case—and the money—took him.
His bank’s president, Bradford Withers, was a social butterfly and seldom much help. Among those working under Thatcher were Everett Gabler, highly intelligent, irascible, literal-minded, and a stickler for detail; Charlie Trinkam, a raffish proponent of wine, women, and song; the ebullient chief of research Walter Bowman; and much-put-upon very junior executive Ken Nicolls. And then there was Thatcher’s redoubtable secretary and gatekeeper Rose Theresa Corsa. She was impeccably organized, did not suffer fools (gladly or otherwise), and generally ran Thatcher’s life while regarding his amateur detective work with exasperation. “She was clearly designed by nature for the motto: We are not amused,” but if there was ever anything Thatcher needed to be done, she would find a way to do it. She also had a mystery of her own: She kept a little tin box in her locked bottom drawer. Noone knew what was in it, though Thatcher tried to guess countless times, but when the building was closed once for a bomb scare, it was the one thing she took with her.
Together, these people and others tackled such questions as: Who laced the chicken served by a fast-food chain with poison? Who created the fake documents that threatened a huge grain sale to Russia? What happened to the automobile executive, jailed for price-fixing, who returned to his company only to be murdered? Were the fishy results at the National Calculating Company the result of inefficiency or fraud—and how did they lead to an outside accountant being found dead, strangled with the cord of his own adding machine? Who was responsible for the sabotage threatening to torpedo a giant corporate deal with Japan? And was the astonishing sniper shooting of a leading French alpine skier in mid-air related to a newly-discovered massive fraud in European travelers’ checks?
All these and much more were approached with intelligence, humor, grace, and acute perceptions of what made people, and Wall Street, tick.
Of their home turf: “Wall Street is, at bottom, a collection of endearingly childlike innocents, always expecting the good, the beautiful, the true, and the profitable” (Pick Up Sticks, 1970).
Of a business proposal: “While we are interested in your model for estimating supply, we at the Sloan still feel that demand plays a part in price changes” (Death Shall Overcome, 1966).
Of an entrepreneur: “He was a born salesman. Every time he spoke, he convinced himself” (Pick Up Sticks).
Of a delicate lunch negotiation: “At last, Robicheaux dithered himself into petulant repudiation of all suggestion. The waiter played his final card. There was an offer of olive oil and vinegar. Perhaps the gentleman would care to mix his own. The gentleman would. The waiter retired with the triumphant air of one who has handled a difficult situation well” (Accounting for Murder, 1964).
After Latsis and Henissart achieved sufficient success, they gave up their day jobs and bought a house together in Warren, New Hampshire, where they spent part of every year writing and hiking. Neither married. According to the New York Times, Henissart had a “succession of suitors” and Latsis an “aversion to marriage,” though she maintained a forty-year romance with a Cambridge investment executive “while maintaining separate residences.”
Latsis died in 1997. The pair had won a Gold Dagger, an Edgar Award, and an Agatha Award for lifetime achievement. At the time of her death, they were eighty percent through a new book using the setting of the Persian Gulf War, but Henissart elected not to complete it. Reached by the Mount Holyoke College Alumni Association in 2012, she was asked if she had written anything since. She said, “Not a word.” She paused, then added, laughing, “Occasionally, I see something interesting and think it’d make a book, but then I come to my senses.”
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THE ESSENTIAL LATHEN
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With any prolific author, readers are likely to have their own particular favorites, which may not be the same as someone else’s. Your list is likely to be just as good as mine—but here are the ones I recommend.
When in Greece (1969)
In 1967, Mary Jane Latsis, who was the daughter of Greek immigrants, became quite perturbed about a right-wing military takeover in Greece, the Colonels’ Revolution. She and Henissart were already working on a book, but they stopped and turned out When in Greece in six weeks.
This is more of an adventure story than normal for Lathen, though there is a murder mystery, too. The Sloan has a major interest in a Greek development project when the coup erupts, and unfortunately for them, their only man on the ground at the moment is the very junior Ken Nicolls, who after witnessing a murder, is swiftly arrested. Though thanks to an earthquake, he escapes, he is now on the run, being pursued by unknown parties. Everett Gabler takes it upon himself to fly to Greece to get to the bottom of things—and he is promptly kidnapped, leaving Thatcher no choice but to try to take matters into his own hands. The book rambunctiously alternates among the three bankers and their respective perils across the Greek countryside, and it is very entertaining—all the more so when they enlist the help of two women archaeologists in their plan, one of whom causes the normally dyspeptic Gabler to exclaim in admiration, “Wow, there is a woman!”
Double, Double, Oil and Trouble (1978)
Thatcher is in Zurich on a routine mission, when he is awakened at three in the morning by the news that a key player in an oil development project has been kidnapped in Istanbul by a terrorist group called Black Tuesday, who is demanding a million and a half dollars be deposited in a Zurich numbered account that very morning. Hours later, he and Charlie Trinkam are trudging up the Bahnhofstrasse, carrying two large briefcases each.
“It is unusual, I grant you,” said Thatcher. “And I, for one, refuse to say that it’s all in a day’s work.” He looked at Trinkam. “Why are you talking out of the corners of your mouth, Charlie?”
“Charlie did not relax his precautions. ‘Lipreaders,’ he said lopsidedly.”
But even after the ransom is paid, there is no sign of the abductee, prompting speculation that maybe there was no terrorist group. Could it be competing oil bidders? An inside job? The estranged wife? A possible answer seems to be dashed when the abductee finally does appear, somewhat the worse for wear – and is promptly killed by a car bomb. More deaths follow, the action spins among Istanbul, Zurich, Houston, and London, and, all in all, it is most satisfactory.
Death Shall Overcome (1966)
A crusty, old brokerage house announces its intentions to install a black multimillionaire as a full partner on the Stock Exchange, and all hell breaks loose. One man is poisoned in what appears to have been a botched attempt on the prospect, and then someone shoots at him, and a storm of protests and recriminations blows up. As the police investigate, Thatcher is drafted into a Wall Street committee to deal with the mess, and when a colleague asks what exactly the committee is supposed to do, he 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.”
Is the book dated? A little bit—but then again, no. Sadly, the problems, personalities, and issues confronting the black candidate are still all too familiar more than fifty years later, as is the presence of an old racist New York businessman of questionable mental stability who gives encouraging winks and nods to racial hate groups.
“Ran into Glover this morning. He tells me that Owen Abercrombie has gone crazy.”
“How could he tell?” asked Thatcher with genuine interest.
“Says he’s talking about a Wall Street Defense Council,” said Robicheaux. “With rifles. You remember they had to take his uncle Basil off the floor in a straitjacket in ’29.”
“I didn’t,” said Thatcher, considerably entertained.
“Bad blood,” Robicheaux said.
The book is characteristically entertaining—but also a bit sobering.
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BOOK BONUS
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Latsis and Henissart also wrote seven mystery novels under the pseudonym of R.B. Dominic, about Washington, D.C. and an enterprising congressman named Ben Safford. Like the Thatcher books, these novels are solidly plotted, observant, and touched with wit about such matter as Medicaid abuse, defense fraud, political bribery, and embattled Supreme Court nominees. I know, I know, subjects obviously of no relevance of any sort today, but do try to bear with them.
The books aren’t as good as the Thatchers—a little thin at times—but as with the Oliver Bleeck books by Ross Thomas, still a fine way to spend a couple of hours.
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NOT-SO-BOOK BONUS
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The Lathens have gone out of print, but used copies are easily available online. So are ebook editions, but a caveat is necessary here. They come from a company called Adams Media, and according to the blog The Passing Tramp, have many errors, though I haven’t looked at them myself. Their covers are certainly very generic-looking—basically stock photos. Of more concern, an introduction to the editions claims that the series “has been extended” to more novels featuring John Putnam Thatcher’s daughter, Elizabeth, who now works for the Sloan. There are two of those for sale, as well as some books purporting to be screenplays of three of the Lathens. I don’t know who did the “extending,” but it was certainly not Latsis and Henissart, and as you’ve seen above, Henissart herself has said she’s written “not a word” since Latsis’s death. The online reviews of the “Elizabeth Thatcher” books are scathing, to put it mildly.
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CLOSE-BUT-NO-CIGAR BOOK BONUS
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I have in my files five treasured pieces of correspondence to me from 1979 to 1985, some from Warren, New Hampshire, some from Brookline, Massachusetts, all signed by “Mary Jane” and “Martha.” I was a fervent fan of theirs then, as now, and hoped to publish them. For their part, they were hoping to move from their then-publisher, but ultimately couldn’t manage it at the time. The last exchange noted that the moment might be closer now, but that they were in the middle of writing the book and liked to concentrate on that before placing it: “We have not finished yet, but we are hard at work.” As it turned out, for whatever reason, that book was not finished for some time, and they had a publishing hiatus between 1982 and 1988.
At least I still have the letters.
