In 1966, the bastions of the New York financial district are rattled by an announcement from an old and well-established brokerage; for the first time in its history, Wall Street will have a black member of the Stock Exchange.

That the candidate is well-educated, well-bred, and a multi-millionaire banker is not enough to soften the blow, and he is soon the target of two attempted murders. Lines are drawn, with one side headed up by unhinged businessman Owen Abercrombie (who wants all pinkos nuked and all Negroes sent back to Africa) and the other by a slick, self-aggrandizing African-American novelist who is milking the situation for all he can get.

The fifth of Emma Lathen’s witty mysteries featuring elegant, urbane John Putnam Thatcher, senior vice president and head of the trust department at Sloan (third largest bank in the world) and a formidable ferreter-out of financial - and other - secrets. Although the language is dated, the characters and situation are not. The portrait of Ambercrombie, in particular, is eerily prescient.