Elzinga, Ken (Aka, Jevons, Marshall) / The Mystery of the Invisible Hand: A Henry Spearman Mystery

Marshall Jevons is the pen name of Kenneth G. Elzinga, the Robert C. Taylor Professor of Economics at the University of Virginia. Elzinga, along with William Breit (1933-2011), has written three other Henry Spearman mysteries, The Fatal Equilibrium, Murder at the Margin (Princeton), and A Deadly Indifference (Princeton).

In The Mystery of the Invisible Hand, Henry Spearman, an economics professor with a knack for solving crimes, is pulled into a case that mixes campus intrigue, stolen art, and murder. Arriving at San Antonio's Monte Vista University to teach a course on art and economics, he is confronted with a puzzling art theft and the suspicious suicide of the school's artist-in-residence. From Texas to New York, Spearman traces the connections between economics and the art world, finding his clues in monopolies, auction theory, and Adam Smith. How is a company's capital like an art museum's collection? What does the market say about art's authenticity versus its availability? What is the mysterious "death effect"--and does it lie at the heart of the case? Spearman must rely on his savviest economic thinking to answer these questions--and pin down a killer.

9780691259352

Princeton University Press

May 2024

Paperback

Elzinga, Ken (Aka, Jevons, Marshall) / The Mystery of the Invisible Hand: A Henry Spearman Mystery