In Right on the Money, Lathen continues to employ her successful pattern by focusing on a small, select group of characters, the classic "closed society."

In a sense, though, this is a case of two closed societies colliding — the Ecker Company and ASI. The settings are by and large restricted to the headquarters of the two companies, and the discomfort that occurs when on each other's terrain emphasizes the basic conflict between the two. Lathen plays up the physical differences of the two sites: Ecker is housed in an old mill building, with no boardroom or elaborate research facilities, a situation that shocks the ASI representatives. Nor is corporate protocol observed: board meetings are held in Conrad Ecker's kitchen and an ASI official is taken aback when the Ecker office manager shakes his hand and calls him by his first name. ASI, on the other hand, is...