There are several topics that would be fruitful for discussion with any Lathen novel. All of Lathen's novels, for example, introduce a topical theme related to the financial world: graft, greed, international trade, and the stock and futures markets. Students may thus find it interesting to compare Lathen's reading of the situations with that of the media and other sources, or to contrast an actual occurrence with a similar one in a novel.

As is often noted, while Lathen mocks the pretensions of the financial world, her works ultimately hold capitalism up as a positive force; there may be those who abuse the system, but the system itself is good. Thus, a discussion of what capitalism represents in the novels — its order, basic nature, function — could also be fruitful, especially when looking at novels such as Murder Against the Grain and East Is East...