Emma Lathen

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Emma Lathen is an American mystery author.

Emma Lathen is the pen name for two American authors: Martha Henissart (who received her B.A. in physics from Mount Holyoke College in 1950), and Mary Jane Latsis (who was born on July 12, 1927 and died on October 29, 1997).

Henissart and Latsis met as graduate students at Harvard. As Lathen, they wrote numerous mystery novels starring John Putnam Thatcher, detective and Wall Street banker. They also wrote under the alternative pseudonym R. B. Dominic; these stories all feature congressman Benton Safford as the sleuth.

The books often refer to specific public events in their plotting; for example, "When in Greece" is mostly set in that country during the Colonels' Revolution, and "Going for the Gold" involves the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid. Others relate to more general social and other trends, such as "Death Shall Overcome" which links with the Civil Rights Movement.

1 Works
- 1.1 Written as Emma Lathen
- 1.2 Written as R. B. Dominic
2 Awards
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Works

[edit] Written as Emma Lathen

Banking on Death (1961)
A Place for Murder (1963)
Accounting for Murder (1964)
Murder Makes the Wheels go Round (1966)
Death Shall Overcome (1966)
Murder Against the Grain (1967)
A Stitch in Time (1968)
Come to Dust (1968)
When in Greece (1969)
Murder to Go (1969)
Pick Up Sticks (1970)
Ashes to Ashes (1971)
The Longer the Thread (1971)
Murder Without Icing (1972)
Sweet and Low (1974)
By Hook or by Crook (1975)
Double, Double, Oil and Trouble (1978)
Going for the Gold (1981) (UK title Going for Gold)
Green Grow the Dollars (1982)
Something in the Air (1988)
East is East (1991)
Right on the Money (1993)
Brewing Up a Storm (1996)
Shark Out of Water (1997)

[edit] Written as R. B. Dominic

Murder Sunny Side Up (1968)
Murder in High Place (1970)
There Is No Justice (aka Murder out of Court) (1971)
Epitaph for a Lobbyist (1974)
Murder out of Commission (1976)
The Attending Physician (1980)
Unexpected Developments (aka A Flaw in the System) (1983)

(This list may be incomplete)

Her recurring characters are especially engaging: John Putnam Thatcher is senior vice president of Sloan Guaranty Bank, a "youthful sixty" in Accounting for Murder and unaging in subsequent novels. His unsentimental view of the world allows him to apply his banker's knowledge to the crimes that pop up. His nominal superior is the bank's president, Bradford Withers (married to Carrie), a socialite and dunderhead; the chairman of the board George Lancer (married to Lucy) has more depth, but fewer amusing scenes. Thatcher's secretary is the redoubtable Rose Corsa; she fends off interruptions from the bank officers who report to Thatcher: Charles Trinkham (raffish), Everett Gabler (severe), and Walter Bowman (corpulent and curious). The very junior trust officer Kenneth Nicholls often appears, perhaps because the first Emma Lathen novel detailed how he met his wife Jane, while subsequent books detailed the purchase of his first home, birth of a son and a daughter, and first international business trip.