Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Banking on Death | 1961 | Emma Lathen | Buy |
| 2 | A Place for Murder | 1963 | Emma Lathen | Buy |
| 3 | Accounting for Murder | 1964 | Emma Lathen | Buy |
| 4 | Murder Makes the Wheels Go ‘Round | 1966 | Emma Lathen | Buy |
| 5 | Death Shall Overcome | 1966 | Emma Lathen | Buy |
| 6 | Murder Against the Grain | 1967 | Emma Lathen | Buy |
| 7 | A Stitch in Time | 1968 | Emma Lathen | Buy |
| 8 | Come to Dust | 1968 | Emma Lathen | Buy |
| 9 | When in Greece | 1969 | Emma Lathen | Buy |
| 10 | Murder To Go | 1969 | Emma Lathen | Buy |
| 11 | Pick Up Sticks | 1970 | Emma Lathen | Buy |
| 12 | Ashes to Ashes | 1971 | Emma Lathen | Buy |
| 13 | The Longer the Thread | 1971 | Emma Lathen | Buy |
| 14 | Murder Without Icing | 1972 | Emma Lathen | Buy |
| 15 | Sweet and Low | 1974 | Emma Lathen | Buy |
| 16 | By Hook or by Crook | 1975 | Emma Lathen | Buy |
| 17 | Double, Double, Oil and Trouble | 1978 | Emma Lathen | Buy |
| 18 | Going for the Gold | 1980 | Emma Lathen | Buy |
| 19 | Green Grow the Dollars | 1982 | Emma Lathen | Buy |
| 20 | Something in the Air | 1988 | Emma Lathen | Buy |
| 21 | East Is East | 1991 | Emma Lathen | Buy |
| 22 | Right on the Money | 1993 | Emma Lathen | Buy |
| 23 | Brewing Up a Storm | 1996 | Emma Lathen | Buy |
| 24 | A Shark Out of Water | 1997 | Emma Lathen | Buy |
The John Putnam Thatcher series follows a Wall Street banker whose financial investigations keep intersecting with murder. Over 24 books, Thatcher’s cases take him from banking boardrooms to automobile factories, Greek shipping magnates to grain markets, reflecting the real economic landscape of each decade.
The series is known for its intelligent plotting, bone-dry humor, and unusually accurate depictions of how business and finance actually work. Each novel uses a different industry or economic situation as both its backdrop and the motive for murder.