We got away last week for a too short vacation. Here’s what I read during our travels:
A mention on the dorothyl email list prompted me to add Emma Lathen’s MURDER WITHOUT ICING to my bag. So happy that I did! I hadn’t read a Lathen in a while, so I was due. To me, she is the model for classic, traditional whodunits. Crisp, witty, incisive and instructive — you’d think that a book published in 1972 would have little relevance today, but the fundamentals of economics and business don’t change, and Lathen’s wry humor is timeless.
MURDER WITHOUT ICING is typical of the series. Circumstances force New York banker John Putnam Thatcher into getting involved in a client’s business. A murder takes place. Thatcher and his colleagues — these days, we’d stereotype them as stuffed shirts, but in Lathen’s hands they’re a pretty human bunch — poke around the business, informing us as they inform each other. The ICING in this book is hockey, not baking, so we are learning about the National Hockey League at a moment when the sport’s popularity is growing. It’s a little quaint to see references to “six-figure television budgets, multi-million-dollar sports facilities” when today’s numbers are orders of magnitude higher. But the basics are the same today as they were fifty years ago. The book works because whether Thatcher and colleagues are discussing finances or a veteran player describes kids playing hockey, the details are just right. Lathen always demonstrates a genuine interest in and enthusiasm for the work.
I had an opportunity to write about Lathen and R.B. Dominic, the other pseudonym for Mary Jane Latsis and Martha Henissart, for the Malice Domestic program book in 1997. The short essay is on this blog:
https://www.statelyhuangmanor.com/essays-and-other-words/emma-lathen-right-on-the-money
I shared this link on dorothyl back in 2018, with this comment: "I’m glad that there is still this positive way to look at America in fiction even if these days I’m feeling more in the mood of The Continental Op in RED HARVEST.” Somehow, I feel even more strongly about this in 2024. I wish way more people were reading Emma Lathen now!
The other book that I read while away was BLACKWATER FALLS by Ausma Zehanat Khan, which was definitely more in the RED HARVEST vein, down to the corrupt law enforcement types and wealthy and powerful folks ruling over a small frontier (Colorado, in this case) town. It’s contemporary, so the oppressed aren’t just poor, they are the refugees and immigrants who work in the meat packing plant even as they are demonized by the white nationalist mega church. The situation is compelling, the writing is assured, and the protagonist, Detective Inaya Rahman, is a fascinating character, well-portrayed.
There’s a lot to like here, especially in the moments when Rahman is allowed to do what you’d think her job would be. As a member of the police force’s Community Response Unit, Rahman is capable of connecting with people in a way that goes beyond traditional policing. So we learn a lot about Rahman, her family and her work, and we get some insights into the lives of the immigrants and refugees she encounters over the course of her investigation. But if Khan is good with people, she’s not good at the details of what they’re doing. The investigation never really makes sense in the one step leads to the next step rhythm that good police procedurals follow. The mechanisms of the corruption feel generic and maybe that’s Khan’s point, but it makes for an vaguely unsatisfying resolution. Folks should read BLACKWATER FALLS: Khan has something important to say about how too many of us see immigrants and refugees. But it’s a pretty dark vision. Despite Rahman’s heroics, she’s no Continental Op, and it’s hard to imagine that she’s left the community any better at the end of this novel. (And maybe Poisonville wasn’t really better off at the end of RED HARVEST either….)
One last note: if you need a primer on what makes a mystery published in 1972 different from a mystery published in 2022, you can’t do better than to read MURDER WITH ICING and BLACKWATER FALLS next to each other. The Lathen is about what her characters are doing: the details of their work matter. The Khan is about the people themselves, so Khan’s energy has gone into creating interesting characters with compelling stories. Who they are matters, but what they do, not so much.