MURDER AT NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

A homicide detective tracks a killer amongst office politics, old high school drama, and many secrets in Martin’s mystery novel.

Washington, D.C., 1965: Joan Smollett is found dead in her office. Her purse has clearly been ransacked (her wallet is missing), and there’s a page from the dictionary of words beginning with the letter “L” stuffed into her mouth. Joan was head of the editorial research department at National Geographic magazine, and a stickler for rules and protocol—like she was back in high school, when she intimidated and annoyed other students. Just a few days before the murder, Joan and her husband Jeffrey attended their 30th high school reunion, where they encountered William Price, a man who has hated Joan since their school days. Back then, she had a condescending attitude, which seems to have followed her into adulthood and continued to make enemies. At work, Joan had reported journalist Xander Riley’s behavior (concerning an ill-advised demonstration of a poison dart) to Melville Bell Grosvenor, National Geographic’s president and editor-in-chief. Grosvenor scolded Riley, which increased Riley’s anger at Joan, who had previously annoyed him with her criticism of his writing (“He stared daggers at the stick-thin researcher”). Also under suspicion is Joan’s husband, Jeffrey, who appears to be a grieving husband but has a shaky alibi and was sleeping in a separate room from his wife. All of them are viable suspects, reckons police Detective Archimedes Bib, but the killer could be someone surprising hiding in plain sight. Martin has crafted a superb mystery with a memorable cast of characters and many unexpected twists and turns. Joan is a believably unlikable person but a sympathetic victim, and the murder suspects are as complex as they are different from one another. Riley in particular stands out as the layers of his character are peeled back over the course of the story; his youthfully reckless attitude is juxtaposed against Bib’s wise and experienced perspective, making their contrasting points-of-view the most compelling aspect of the book.

A rewarding mystery with a satisfying ending.