The Longer the Thread (A John Putman Thatcher Mystery) - Softcover

Lathen, Emma

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0671834916 ISBN 13: 9780671834913

Publisher: Pocket Books, 1973

Synopsis

The setting is in a clothing manufacturing plant in Puerto Rico. John Putnam Thatcher, senior vice-president of the Sloan Guaranty Trust, found out when he investigated the affairs of Slax Unlimited, this Sloan backed plant in Puerto Rico beset with some very suspicious "accidents." With $3 million of Sloan money at stake, there was nothing for Thatcher to do but go down to San Juan to investigate. What he found was a body in the front office, violence in a fiery festival, and a ransom note to the governor of Puerto Rico. There has been a rash of sabotage at the plant and management suspects a troublesome supervisor with connections to radical political movements. Thatcher is visiting just as the troublemaker is found murdered in the executive offices, shot through the back of the head, with incriminating evidence on his person. But was he the saboteur or did he discover the real culprit's identity. As with several of the other novels, the story is more about the peripheral events - in this case pragmatism versus political idealism, though stupidly conceived - and there isn't much about the evidence or detection process, or even about the personalities of the major suspects. There is also a growing feud between two members of the management team, one of whom is ostensibly kidnapped by a group of radical students, who are also prime suspects in an arson incident that destroys the company's warehouse. Both of these seemed suspicious to me and I assumed at this point that one of the managers was actually behind both events for reasons as yet unknown, and that the kidnapped man was probably dead. Sure enough, his body turns up a short while later. I had narrowed down the list of suspects to two people and it was one of them, but there was really no way to guess correctly because of withheld information. And for Sloan's premier investigator, murder was decidedly not conducive to business.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Publication date: 1973
• ISBN 10: 0671834916
• ISBN 13: 9780671834913
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 190