Murder Makes the Wheels Go 'Round

John Putnam Thatcher #4

by Emma Lathen

Michigan Motors' top executives lived for their jobs-until one of them was murdered.

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Fiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

Aka R.B. Dominic

Emma Lathen is the pen name of two American businesswomen: an attorney Mary Jane Latsis (July 12, 1927 -October 29, 1997) and an economic analyst Martha Henissart (b. 1929),who received her B.A. in physics from Mount Holyoke College in 1950.

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/31/boo...

Reviews

[Les Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad book but nothing noteworthy.

[Vicki Cline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thatcher has to go to Detroit to look into an auto company. While he's there, one of its executives is murdered. Naturally he figures out the culprit. I had a bit of a hard time keeping the characters in Detroit straight, something I haven't noticed in previous books.

[Andrea]

A note for anyone thinking of picking up this series in ebook. The ebook editions have clearly been scanned and OCR'd and are riddled with errors. They've run a spellchecker over it, but paragraph returns, quotation marks and incorrect words are rampant.

In terms of content, this particular volume was a little dull.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eminently fair play, with a witty, intelligent detective.

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Sloan Research Department is enthusiastic about the investment prospects of Michigan Motors - disregarding the fact that it was part of a criminal price-fixing case not long ago. VP John Thatcher arrives in Detroit at the same time as the convicted administrators return from their jail sentences, hoping to get their jobs back. The most determined convict is found dead in spectacular circumstances. The police don't know enough about finance to relate to the murder motive, and it's up to Thatcher to seize on the vital clue.

A huge custom-made car with genuine leopard skin upholstery thoroughly dates the book – written 52 years ago.

Read 2 times

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggled a bit with both the pacing and the abundance of characters in this one.

[Clare O'Beara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one starts to feel like historical crime; written in 1966, it almost is. A line: 'Twin towers with a hundred and ten storeys, for God's sake! You know what that'll do to the vacancy rate around City Hall?' (The WTC was completed in 1973.)
Women are generally secretaries or wives. A cartel of car makers is accused of colluding to drive up the price of cars in America. I'm shocked, I tell you.
The brand names Michigan Motors and Plantagenet (a variety of car) appear on just about every page, sometimes more than once. This does make it a bit hard to read. Plus the fact of everyone being men, except the odd secretary, or 'special agent' who is required to show her slip.
The staged finding of a dead body in front of dignitaries including a crown prince occupies a good part of the story, but only inasmuch as it will bring down the value of the firm. I didn't find anyone to like.
I read a paperback. This is an unbiased review.

[Emmanuel Gustin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was the fourth the duo of authors published, in 1966, and in several ways it emphatically shows its age. It is set in Detroit, at a time when the American car industry was flourishing and the city with it. And it is a story full of male executives, with women in the role of wives and secretaries. But in other ways, life hasn't changed much, and this acerbic commentary on management culture (with generous swipes to academics, politicians, and policemen) hasn't lost much of its relevance.

And it still is a combination of detective story and satire which handsomely succeeds in both of its ambitions. The reader needs to be quite attentive to pick up the clues that are strewn around through the story, waiting for the moment when truth suddenly reveals itself. Meanwhile we are treated to a stream of social misadventures and dry commentary. One of the best in the series.

[Alonzo Church · Rating 3 out of 5]

Michigan Motors has been rocked by a price fixing scandal, but they still build good cars that sell. The company might be a good investment for John Putnam Thatcher’s investment bank, if the corrupt ex-officers of the company are firmly out of the picture. The former CEO is fresh out of jail, though, and he might well sweet talk the board into getting his job back. Well, he might have done, if he had not tuned up dead in the back seat of a luxury Super Plantagenet about to be delivered to Arab royalty.

Good set up with mid-60s atmosphere a-plenty. But, ultimately this is a resoundingly so-so mystery. The clunky title is matched by the somewhat tedious goings on. Not bad; not great.

[Theodore Kinni · Rating 1 out of 5]

Discovered this old series thru "CrimeReads" (https://crimereads.com/emma-lathen-a-...) and gave it a shot. So badly paced and boringly written that I don't want to donate to the public library 'cause someone else might make the mistake of reading it.

[Marsha Valance · Rating 4 out of 5]

Senior VP of the Sloan Guaranty Trust John Putnam Thatcher is shanghaied to Detroit, where a new product unveiling at Michigan Motors, a disgraced auto manufacturer, is highlighted by the murder of a suspect executive. A Garland Classic of Crime Fiction, 1950-1975.

[Ronald Wilcox · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like the protagonist and the writing is good but just found this entry in the series (fourth) fairly boring.

[Helen Meads · Rating 3 out of 5]

Passable 1960s murder story, with rather too many indistinguishable characters introduced in too few pages at the outset.

Reasonably diverting.

[Regine]

Solid.

[Christoph Weber · Rating 3 out of 5]

I took a break while reading this, that did not help when it came to the grand finale. I had to reread a bit. But it's so well-hidden even reading it on one go might not have been enough.

[Johnny · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing team using the pseudonymous name, Emma Lathen, had an uncanny ability to capture moments in time. I was only in high school when most of these mysteries were published (originally in the 1960s). Yet, I can remember: the racial tension described in Death Shall Overcome, the uneasy alliance between feminists and unions portrayed in Stitch in Time, and the cataclysmic shift in business models for the automobile industry in this one, Murder Makes the Wheels Go 'Round.

In this novel, a disgraced automotive executive returns to a major Detroit automobile manufacturer (the fictitious Michigan Motors) just when the company plans to float a secondary stock offering. Naturally, banking executive and detective extraordinaire John Putnam Thatcher finds himself in the midst of the chaos when he is sent to investigate the situation to determine if his bank should help underwrite the issue or subscribe to a certain percentage of the issue.

The unfolding plot shows a calculated and ruthless attempt to put business before decency and greed before life. The solution to the murder requires Thatcher to decide between his traditional modus operandi and "following the money" or to determine whether even an economist with ice in his veins could commit and crime of passion. All the way through the book, one senses the direction Thatcher is going, but it is not certain until approaching the final pages.

Still, though this dual foci of motives kept me off-balance until late in the book, I found the pacing of this book to be less thrilling than other novels in the series. It didn't seem like the evidence was being unveiled and considered at a solid pace. At times, it appeared that the authors were forcing the reader to perform repetitious and ritual exercises in order to demonstrate what Thatcher felt about it. If so, they succeeded. Portions of the book are tedious. Fortunately, the rest of the package is solid as usual.

[Mary Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars, one star

I read most of the Emma Lathens when they were new, and enjoyed them thoroughly. Mary and Martha have delightfully devious minds, and I love the "Gotcha" moments when I realize that the solution was right in front of me. That's the basis for the five stars.
Unfortunately, the book seems to have been prepared for epublishing by being retyped by someone who never heard of Strunk and White. Or Noah Webster. It is difficult to follow dialogue when several characters' utterances are shoehorned into one paragraph with only sporadic quotation marks. Or the opposite happens, what should be a single paragraph is separated randomly into multiple word clusters. Misspellings are common, and, for the love of the English language, a sentence never starts with a number. "2 men were," indeed.
Just for the sheer aggravation of all the errors, and how it detracted from my enjoyment, I would award the publisher only one star.

[Alien · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hobby investigator Thatcher - in his real life the vice-president of an investment bank - is sent to Detroit. His task is to find out whether the car manufacturer MM is a sound investment, which is a bit doubtful because 2 of its managers went to jail for price fixing. After being released, one of them wants his job back, which causes some commotion. Then he is found dead.

Lathen is obviously a well known crime novel author (or 2 authors, because it is an alias). And quite popular amongst goodreads readers. I found the novel to be too sedate and slow. Only on page 46 a murder happens.
The novel has an ironic undertone that seems to ask "well, is this not all terribly amusing?" I would answer: no, not for me, sorry.
I quit at page 60 of 189.

[Carolyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Although the humor is as enjoyable as usual, I could not get over the giant plot flaw. Any murder mystery fan ought to know what happens to your body when you die. I can excuse it in those murder mysteries written long ago when the realities of death were considered nearly obscene and certainly in bad taste; in this more modern book, the idea that a person could unknowingly ride in an enclosed vehicle with a fairly fresh victim still dressed in the clothing he was killed in is too preposterous to excuse.

[Lisa Kucharski · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Lathen team takes on Detroit. Incredible wit with a really tricky mystery. It's all in the timing of things.... hint hint. Betcha might not still figure it out, even with the hint.

One interesting point to cross in this book... was the discussion of the building of the WTC. Had to pause for a moment when I read about it, knowing it's gone now. It's also interesting to read about the Detroit scene considering how much has changed there as well.

Regardless of the story being written in the past, all that is noticed is still relevant today.

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: VP Thatcher of Sloan Research is in Detroit to investigate the opportunities for investment in Michigan Motors. A murder occurs.

[Donna]

Finally, this waste of paper is over. The series was recommended on a crime genre website, yet I couldn’t be more disappointed. Poor character development meant the murdered and the murderer were effectively strangers to the reader even in the denouement, and the thin plot line was no better.