Right on the Money by Emma Lathen
Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)
Given the background of this 1993 mystery is a corporate merger, I couldn’t blame a reader thinking that reading this oldie would offer as much excitement as changing a duvet cover. In fact the author makes the merger the stuff of drama, with fatal flaws like pride and fear of the future bringing about tragedy.
In the 22nd mystery starring John Putnam Thatcher, the banker and amateur detective has to get the bottom of the murder of a loudmouth so ambitious for attention and promotions that an insurance adjustor expresses surprise that the vic made it as far as 32 years of age.
Aqua Supplies, Inc. (ASI) is too big, too bureaucratic, and too complacent to fire anybody and so not able to develop new kitchen appliances that female consumers may actually want to buy. So it fixes to merge – that is, gobble up whole without so much as a belch – with Ecker, a small family-owned and operated designer and maker of nifty percolators and such. Since the disability retirement of the Ecker heir, the main assets there are its ageing founder and its highly talented female CFO.
ASI assistant division manager Victor Hunnicut rolls his eyes at the kool-aid stand ways of Ecker. His skill set, he realizes, would not make him a candidate for running Ecker so he puts his ambition above the interests of his employer and makes plans to quash the merger plans. He fears that other middle managers will leapfrog over him, thus cutting him off from chances to shine for his superiors. While giving Ecker a get-acquainted tour, the hotshot intimates to Ken Nicholls that factions in both companies are duking it out over the merger plans. Ken Nicholls is a junior banking exec who’s often sent by hero John Putnam Thatcher to gather information.
After the tour, things start to get criminous. The quaint old mill that stored Ecker’s financial computers and files for research and development is torched by an arsonist. Go-getter Vic Hunnicut is murdered at the annual trade show.
Emma Lathen was the pen name of Mary Latsis (economic analyst) and Martha Hennissart (attorney). Both knew the worlds of business at all levels from clerks to CEOs, so they felt at home in a constantly changing business environment and the variety of personalities to be found in the private sector. Sure, the business environment has changed in the last 35 years, but human nature has not. For instance, as old-school feminists, they have acerbic fun satirizing businessmen who are buoyed up by secretaries but who attribute their success to their own intelligence and diligence.
