A popular author with a winning formula tends to repeat it, and Emma Lathen is no exception. Every Thatcher novel starts at the Sloan and ends with Thatcher's exposition of the crime in the last or next to last chapter; every Thatcher novel has comic relief by the supporting cast at the Sloan; and every Thatcher novel has as its unsung heroine Rose Theresa Corsa, secretary par excellence.

For the most part, the novels concern themselves with management and owners more than with workers (except in very special kinds of businesses, for example, the hockey players in Murder Without Icing, 1972). Only one previous novel has explored the nature of management-employee relations in any detail: The Longer the Thread (1971). In this book, set in Puerto Rico in politically troubled times, it is clear that the reader, and Thatcher, should support management and oppose a radical power base...