The Mystery of the Invisible Hand: A Henry Spearman Mystery

Economics professor and amateur detective Henry Spearman tackles a mystery where the price of art is murder

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.

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).