Cinnamon Bay seems like the ideal Caribbean getaway. But for Harvard economist and amateur detective Henry Spearman it offers an unexpected and decidedly different diversion: murder. With the police at a loss, Spearman investigates on his own, following a rather different set of laws—those of economics. Theorizing and hypothesizing, Spearman sets himself on the killer’s trail as it winds from the perfect beaches and manicured lawns of a resort to the bustling old port of Charlotte Amalie to the perilous hiking trails of a dense forest. Can Spearman crack the case using economics—and before it’s too late?
Marshall Jevons is the pen name of Kenneth G. Elzinga, the Robert C. Taylor Professor of Economics at the University of Virginia, and William Breit (1933–2011). Together, they wrote two other Henry Spearman mysteries, The Fatal Equilibrium and A Deadly Indifference (Princeton). Elzinga, as Marshall Jevons, is also the author of another Henry Spearman book, The Mystery of the Invisible Hand (Princeton).
"If there is a more painless way to learn economic principles, scientists must have recently discovered how to implant them in ice cream."—John R. Haring, Jr., Wall Street Journal
"This is a tight little mystery that should hold the interest of any student who enjoys detective stories. At the same time, it contains some basic economic lessons, presented in a way that the first-year student will have no difficulty understanding. . . . Its style is crisp and entertaining, and its cast of characters will delight any mystery lover. . . . What gives Murder at the Margin its sparkle are the shrewd observations about academic life and the authors' ability to transform statements of economic law into deft character analysis."—Sarah Gallagher and George Dawson, Journal of Economic Education
"I thought the economic argument extremely ingenious and the idea of using economic analysis as a way to solve the mystery most original."—Milton Friedman
"At last a new kind of mastermind—a rational 'homoeconomics' and libertarian. If Henry Spearman had not existed, God would have had to invent him. Marshall Jevons did, to his readers' benefit."—Paul Samuelson
