Crime Writer Margot Kinberg

As this is posted, it’s 95 years since the beginning of the stock market crash that led to the worldwide depression of the 1930s. And that, as you’ll know, had devastating economic, political, and social consequences. Of course, investing has always been risky. There’s no guarantee that an investment will pay off, and when it doesn’t, investors can lose everything. That tension, and even drama, can add to a crime story, and it’s interesting to see how it’s woven through the genre.

For example, in Agatha Christie’s The Lost Mine, Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings are discussing investment. Poirot says he has no investments (he is a cautious person) except for one mining company. Then, he tells Hastings the story of how he got that stock. The company was going to purchase some important papers regarding a mine from a Chinese family. Their representative went to London to complete the transaction but went missing before the meeting with the company’s agents. Poirot was engaged to find out what happened to the man. As he retraced what happened, he found out that the mystery hinged on what you might call personal greed. It’s a solid reminder that investment has its risks…

Stuart Palmer’s The Penguin Pool Murder takes place in the immediate aftermath of the stock market crash, when the panic of losing money has really begun to grip people. Grade Three teacher Hildegard Withers has brought her class to the New York Aquarium for a field trip. While they’re there, a pickpocket tries to steal Miss Withers’ handbag. She stops the man, and he is arrested. But the excitement doesn’t end there. One student notices that Miss Withers’ hatpin is missing, and another student is not with the group. Instead, Miss Withers finds him staring at the penguin exhibit. As the class is watching the penguins, the body of a man slides into the penguin pool. Police Inspector Oscar Piper is called to the scene, and an investigation begins. It turns out that the dead man is stockbroker Gerald Lester. And that suggests an array of possible murderers. Each of Lester’s clients has lost money because of the stock market crash; some have been utterly wiped out financially. There are other possibilities, too, and it’s not going to be an easy case for Piper or Miss Withers, who insists on being involved.

Emma Lathen’s protagonist is John Putnam Thatcher, a senior vice president with Sloan Guaranty Trust. In Sweet and Low, he has been named to the board of a charitable foundation that’s closely associated with the Dreyer Chocolate Company (a thinly disguised Hershey). In fact, it owns most of the company’s stock. The chocolate industry is heavily dependent on the cocoa futures market, so anyone who can accurately determine where that market is going is at a great advantage, and Armory Shaw, who trades for Dreyer, is considered the master of the skill. When a series of meetings of the charity board is held at Dreyer’s headquarters in Dreyer, New York, Thatcher attends. He’s hoping to meet the other members of the board and get settled in his role. Everything changes when Dick Frohlich, a small-time trader for Dreyer, is found dead in the swimming pool of his hotel. Then, Shaw himself is murdered on the cocoa futures trading floor. Now, Thatcher is involved in two murders. The world of trading and investments is not the humdrum world it may seem to be.

As Donna Leon’s About Face begins, Venice police detective Commissario Guido Brunetti and his wife Paola Falier go to dinner at the home of Paola’s parents, Conte Orazio Falier and his wife, Donatella. It seems that Falier is thinking of making a considerable investment in a company owned by Maurizio Cataldo. Like other wise investors, he doesn’t want to move too quickly. Before he invests anything, he wants to be sure his money will be safe, so he wants Cataldo ‘vetted,’ and he wants his son-in-law to do the work. Brunetti agrees and starts doing some background research. What he doesn’t know is that this case is connected to another case he’s working – a trucking company that may be involved in illegal dumping. A simple search for a company’s track record ends up being tied to murder and more.

Chelsea Field’s series featuring Isobel ‘Izzy’ Avery begins with Eat, Pray, Die. In it, Izzy moves from her hometown of Adelaide to Los Angeles, mostly to escape her ex-husband, Steve. More to the point, she’s hoping to escape a loan sharking company called Platypus Lending. She owes a lot of money to the company because, early in her marriage to Steve, he’d convinced her to invest in some ‘sure fire’ stocks. Unfortunately, the market crashed, her money was gone, and it turned out that Steve borrowed from an unscrupulous lender. Now, Izzy makes her living as a professional taster for Los Angeles’ A-listers. It’s an object lesson in how risky playing the stock market can be.

You wouldn’t think that investing and the stock market would be tense and suspenseful, but they aren’t as ho-hum as you might imagine. These are just a few examples. Which ones have stayed with you?

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from J.D. Sage’s Stock Market Blues (Wall Street Reds).