Books like Accounting for murder by Emma Lathen

Clarence Fortinbras, a famed professor and author of the standard textbook on accounts receivable, leads a rag‑tag group of shareholders to audit the faltering National Calculating Company. His murder with a cord to his own adding machine sends stocks spiraling and forces Sloan Guaranty Trust’s senior banker, John Putnam Thatcher, to investigate. Thatcher faces a maze of suspects: the ill‑fated president, his ambitious nephew, rival unit heads, and a powerful scientist whose influence exceeds her title. With stakes high and the company’s future in doubt, the case reveals a deep‑rooted financial swindle that threatens to topple a major New York firm. The novel blends sharp financial insight, forensic accounting, and a tightly paced crime mystery, set against the backdrop of a New York banking world on the brink of the computer revolution.

First publish date: 1965