A Place for Murder by Emma Lathen

A Place for Murder by Emma Lathen

published 1963

 

New York bankers, out in the country

 

I was encouraged to read this absolutely splendid book by blogfriend Sovay: in a post on Barbara Pym I had commented on class consciousness in the UK & USA. She asked “have you read A Place for Murder, one of Emma Lathen's earlier books? Set in a village in Connecticut where class differences are very much to the fore. JP Thatcher notes that in suburban Connecticut the important people in the village would be very active on social issues, campaigning for better schools and facilities. But further out in the countryside among the old-money contingent, there is none of this because the better people's children are away at preppy boarding schools; local schools are for the servants' children. No municipal garbage collection so the lower orders spend their weekend carting their garbage to the dump; the higher echelons have people to do that and many other things for them.”

For anyone who doesn’t know: Emma Lathen (several entries on the blog) was the penname of two women who wrote wonderful crime stories centred on a Wall St bank executive, John Putnam Thatcher, and reaching into all kinds of different settings and businesses. The series ran to 27 books from the 1960s to the 1990s. Each has a different topic or milieu, and they are informative and knowledgeable about each; the crime plots are excellent; there is a cast of characters we get to know very well. For example, anyone who has read the books will remember that when I was looking for Queens of the Typewriter - Secretaries in Books, Miss Corsa – Thatcher’s assistant - was the runaway winner in the popular vote.

 And best of all, they are very very funny, without being comic capers (a crime genre I do not naturally like).

Connecticut ladies

A Place for Murder is from the early 1960s (a time when Abercrombie & Fitch did sober business as an ‘upscale sporting goods store’) - so long ago and so universal.


Will JP Thatcher ever look this casual?


I loved the descriptions of fancy life, and all the bankers from New York trying to get out of the trips to Connecticut. I loved the strange social events, the town parade, the town inn, the women and the men not understanding each other – and then there were the dogs, a key element here. Also, surprisingly to me, there was a lot of helicopter activity between Manhattan and the faraway countryside.

While amusing and entertaining, Lathen also can very much make good points about economics and social justice. The secrets behind this murder are fascinating…

And as Sovay says: “It has the added bonus of JP Thatcher getting roaring drunk in the village inn and belting out college football songs.”

This book is hilarious.

There is also the question of ‘antlers’, which it took me a lot of the book to be absolutely sure that it means ‘a whole head of an animal, stuffed, with the antlers prominently displayed’. My kind of life in the UK doesn’t really prepare you for that. The antlers are key. (It is a stag’s head, but still, for people of my age it reminds one very much of the John Cleese comedy, Fawlty Towers, where a moose’s head plays a key role.)




There’s a truly terrible mother to go with our recent bad parents theme on the blog, and our very niche ‘mothers who turn up around the time of a murder and are plainly impossible but great fun.’  Brad Withers, the president of the bank, is well to the fore: he is always a delight in his complete fog of unknowing, lacking the most basic skills of banking or indeed of most other areas of life. Here he has ‘a voice that sometimes led business acquaintances to assume Machiavellian cunning since such innocence was inconceivable.’

Everyone has a character to produce nice subtle jokes along the way. Here is Dave  Tom (corrected after comment below) Robichaux talking about the past: “Francis, you know, was a great little ambulance driver in his youth. Libya, China, all sorts of hellholes. Of course, he’s given up that sort of thing now.” Robichaux was mildly defensive of his partner’s disreputable past. His own had been spent in a succession of impeccable night spots.

And there’s this: “There’s this little drug firm in Mexico that’s come up with something really new. They say they’ve got a pill that combines diet control and contraception.” Trinkam maintained a moment’s impressive silence. “It will,” he said authoritatively, “make a mint!”

Highly recommended.

There is a key Clothes in Books trope of men not understanding the economics of women’s clothes – the ‘simple’ dress:

Her plain wool dress was topped by a short leather jacket and a colorful silk scarf knotted around her throat. Very trim, Ken noted approvingly. She was the kind of woman who looked well in simple clothes, he reflected. His wife would have known better. She would have taken one look at the jacket’s edging of braid trim which matched the material of the dress and told him how much his idea of a simple costume cost. Even Ken was vaguely suspicious. A year of marriage had left its mark.



(difficult to find this exactly, but these, both  from NYPL, give an impression)

Other pictures from fashion ads of the era.

Comments

  1. You've reminded me, Moira, of how great this series really is. I'd forgotten how much wit there is in the stories, even though you wouldn't think so at first look. And I do like the characters, too. Why have I not gotten back to this series? I really need to do that.

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    1. that's exactly how I felt, Margot, a few years ago, when I decided it was time to re-read the series, and I was delighted to find them as good as ever.

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  2. I definitely have to find this one, as quite a few of my college friends have absorbed this Connecticut mentality (not to mention the fight songs - I own a CD of them myself). The only Emma Lathen I remember reading was Murder Without Icing but my father was a big fan.

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    1. Oh then you will love this one! And I feel you would enjoy others in the series.

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  3. I love this series too, it's like Austen meets Christie, American style (if you can imagine that). Antlers are fairly common over here, where deer-hunting is almost a religion in some places, It's not as much an upper-class thing here, though. Some working-class rural families have long stocked up on venison for winter provisions, and hunters come from all income levels. It may be expensive to mount the heads though. I know I've seen antlers (with and without heads attached)in grand country houses, especially in Scotland where gentlemen went to hunt stags. Check out Brodick Castle: https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/arran/brodickcastle/index.html

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    1. I love the castle with the 87 stags' heads.

      Yes they obviously exist in the UK - and particularly Scotland - but not in the circles I move in!

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  4. How nice of you to remind me that I need to read more books by Emma Lathen. Your post also reminded me of how much I enjoyed all the secondary characters like Brad Withers,Dave Robichaux, and Charie Trinkam. I did reread this one in 2003 but that is ages ago.

    One of my problems with reading the John Thatcher series is that so many of the books I have are paperbacks and a number of those have tiny print on yellowed paper. (That applies to a lot of the authors that I have collected in paperback, of course.) But I am sure I have a few hardbacks and some of the paperbacks that I will be able to read well enough should I return to them.

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    1. I failed to mention that I have read all of them at least once, except the last one in the series, A Shark Out Of Water, and I do have a hardback edition of that one. I was not that thrilled with the book previous to that one, so haven't rushed to read it.

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  5. Clothes in Books introduced me to Emma Lathen and I am very grateful. I've been on a rereading spree lately -just finished reading Murder Makes the Wheels Go Round, By Hook or By Crook, and Banking on Death. They're quietly funny and a great insight into American life in the 60s and 70s. (Although Thatcher's much-married friend is Tom Robichaux, not Dave).

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    1. Most of my copies are the Penguin paperbacks and some of the pages are falling out, but I like how small they are - easy to pop into a handbag for reading on planes and trains.

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    2. I love to hear that. Such good books. And thanks - I have corrected the name above.
      the Penguins with the white space covers? - I loved those with the bright splash of whatever the business was, I thought they were beautiful. And as you say, comfortably small. (though she also was good at writing shorter books, while cramming in the great plot)

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  6. I've read them all and love them. I must revisit this one immediately. I have been thinking about the 'simple' dress that is actually chic and expensive. Do you think Jean Muir was an example of this? Chrissie

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    1. yes they probably were, in men's eyes. Not simple at all - and not just because they were well-designed. A friend (this would be 1980s) got hold of a Jean Muir paper pattern, thinking she would be able to get a bargain JM dress. But she took a look at the instructions and thought she couldn't make it at all. So she took it to a professional dress-maker (thinking it would still be reasonable), and was told that the dressmaker could do it, but it would cost a lot of money to make (on top of the fabric of course). My friend was horrified by the quote. I think she just abandoned the plan, but the story made a deep impression on me.

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  7. One of my favourite Lathens!

    JP Thatcher DOES do casual, not in this book but in another of my favourites, “Pick Up Sticks” - whipcord pants, flannel shirt, stout boots from LL Bean and a packsack, which is presumably a rucksack. He’s walking part of the Appalachian Trail with his friend Henry Moreland, who has added ‘an ancient sweater of vaguely Oyster Bay provenance’ to his similar ensemble. Quick online search didn’t really pinpoint what distinguishes an Oyster Bay sweater either now or back in 1971 - some kind of fisherman’s jersey seems indicated but whether Aran or gansey-style …

    Sovay

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    1. I'm guessing the reference was to Oyster Bay being Teddy Roosevelt's home.

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    2. Am I going to have to read that one next Sovay? 😊That does sound surprising given his thoughts in this one.
      and Shay, thanks for helpful extra info. I wonder what kind of sweater Teddy R used to wear...

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  8. I enjoyed the books. More than enough time has passed for me to start re-reading them as fresh stories. I do lament that it is hard to find John Putnam Thatchers in contemporary crime literature. The concept of a distinguished, well dressed, intelligent man of integrity could be popular again as it would be unique. I think JPT would wear the country casual look you featured. What I cannot conceive of is him in a tee shirt, jeans and flip flops.

    On antlers. In Saskatchewan to refer to mounted antlers would just be the antlers. Were a head attached the reference would be to speak of a mounted deer or elk or moose head. Everyone would know the antlers would be on the head so no need to mention them.

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    1. Thanks Bill - even if I didn't know you liked him, I would expect JPT to appeal to you - stylish businessmen together.
      Would he wear shorts ever, do you think? (obviously tailored longer ones)
      Thanks for extra antler info!

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    2. Thanks for the kind words Moira. Perhaps JPT would wear shorts if he were in Bermuda where he could wear shorts, dress shirt, tie, navy blazer and knee length socks. I have seen businessmen in Bermuda so attired. Quite natty.

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  9. I think everyone under 40 should read "Accounting for Murder," as the clearest and best look at how businesses were run before smartphones and AI.

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    1. ALL of them are just fantastic history - whether it's civil rights, religion, the way immigrants move round a city....

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  10. I've just come across another piece of evidence regarding customs in mourning dress, from A Stitch In Time, 1968: "Little Dr Kroner, by the simple expedient of wearing a dark armband to a colleague's funeral, had managed to place himself not only a continent away, but a generation as well."

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