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 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.