The Fatal Equilibrium is a mystery novel that provides a grasp of basic economics on the way to finding out whodunnit. 
Dennis Gossen is dead, a career in economics cut short by the Harvard Promotion and Tenure Committee and an apparent suicide. When two members of that committee are killed, Gossen's fiancee, Melissa Shannon, finds herself indicted for murder. Once again, Henry Spearman, Professor of Economics at Harvard, finds himself on the track of a murderer and once again Marshall Jevons presents his readers with a captivating murder mystery riddle.Was it Morrison Bell, mathematics star, inventor of devices to defeat the squirrels in his birdfeeders? Or was it owl-like Oliver Wu the distinguished sociologist who harbors deep resentments? Was it Valerie Danzig, supposedly former 'item' with Dennis Gossen? Or maybe Foster Barrett, gourmet Harvard classicist? What about Cristolph Burckhardt, infatuated employer of Gossen's fiancee? Or Sophia Ustinov, Russian emigre, lover of American poetry and Borzoi hounds? Three lives come to an end. And when Spearman begins to piece it together, the murderer and Henry find themselves face to face on a luxury liner in a storm at sea in the fourth and final Fatal Equilibrium. For the reader who follows the clues, the solution to this conundrum is, as usual in the best of this genre, elementary. The difference in this case is that it is elementary economics. The Fatal Equilibrium is a mystery novel that provides a grasp of basic economics on the way to finding out whodunnit. Its predecessor, Murder at the Margin, has already achieved a cult following. In a review of Jevons' earlier book, The Wall Street Journal remarked that "if there is a more painless way to learn economic principles, scientists must have recently discovered how to implant them in ice cream."

The Fatal Equilibrium

Business & Money

Jevons, Marshall

Economics

Mit Pr

At Harvard, tenure decisions are a matter of life -- or death. For Dennis Gossen, the economics department whiz kid currently being considered for tenure, it's definitely death. When he's turned down by the high-and-mighty Promotion and Tenure Committee, Gossen commits suicide. A Question of Cost Accounting... Or does he? It's hard to imagine why a young man with a brilliant scholarly future -- at Harvard or not -- would come up with an equation in which the opportunity cost of killing himself (a high price, considering his potential earnings) would be outweighed by the emotional cost of failing to receive tenure. ... Or Utility? Then two members of the P and T Committee are murdered, and it becomes clear to Professor Henry Spearman of the Economics Department that the killer must be on the committee. But which of his illustrious colleagues would have significantly increased his -- or her -- utility (i.e., happiness) by murdering a faculty member or two? Or three?

Fatal Equilibrium: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

Fawcett

Cinnamon Bay Plantation was the ideal Caribbean island getaway―or so it seemed. But for distinguished Harvard economist Henry Spearman it offered diversion of a decidedly different sort and one he'd hardly anticipated: murder.
While the island police force is mired in an investigation that leads everywhere and nowhere, the diminutive, balding Spearman, who likes nothing better than to train his curiosity on human behavior, conducts an investigation of his own, one governed by rather different laws―those of economics. Theorizing and hypothesizing, Spearman sets himself on the killer’s trail as it twists from the postcard-perfect beaches and manicured lawns of a resort to the bustling old port of Charlotte Amalie to densely forested hiking trails with perilous drops to a barren offshore cay.

Murder at the Margin (A Henry Spearman Mystery)

United States

Princeton University Press

Murder at the Margin: A Henry Spearman Mystery

Harvard professor Henry Spearman―an ingenious amateur sleuth who uses economics to size up every situation―is sent by an American entrepreneur to Cambridge, England. Spearman's mission is to scout out for purchase the most famous house in economic science: Balliol Croft, the former dwelling place of Professor Alfred Marshall, John Maynard Keynes’s teacher and the font of modern economic theory. A near miss for the American entrepreneur and the shocking and bizarre murder of Nigel Hart, the master of Bishop’s College, soon make it clear that the whole affair is risky business. When a second corpse turns up, Spearman is jolted into realizing that his own life is in peril as he finds himself face to face with the most diabolical killer in his experience.

A Deadly Indifference: A Henry Spearman Mystery

Fictional sleuth Henry Spearman returns to solve a murder mystery involving art and economics
Henry Spearman, the balding economics professor with a knack for solving crimes, returns in The Mystery of the Invisible Hand―a clever whodunit of campus intrigue, stolen art, and murder. Having just won the Nobel Prize, Spearman accepts an invitation to lecture at Monte Vista University. He arrives in the wake of a puzzling art heist with plans to teach a course on art and economics―only to be faced with the alleged suicide of womanizing artist-in-residence Tristan Wheeler. When it becomes clear that Wheeler had serious enemies and a murderer is in their midst, Henry Spearman is on the case.
Was Wheeler killed by a jilted lover, a cuckolded husband, or a beleaguered assistant? Could there have been a connection between Wheeler's marketability and his death? From the Monte Vista campus in San Antonio to the halls of Sotheby's in New York, Spearman traces the connections between economics and the art world, finding his clues in monopolies and the Coase conjecture, auction theory, and the work of Adam Smith. What are the parallels between a firm’s capital and an art museum’s collection? What does the market say about art’s authenticity versus its availability? And what is the mysterious "death effect" that lies at the heart of the case? Spearman must rely on his savviest economic insights to clear up this artful mystery and pin down a killer.

The Mystery of the Invisible Hand: A Henry Spearman Mystery

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Books by Jevons, Marshall

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Jevons, Marshall. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Fatal Equilibrium

Fatal Equilibrium: A Novel

Murder at the Margin (A Henry Spearman Mystery)

Murder at the Margin: A Henry Spearman Mystery

A Deadly Indifference: A Henry Spearman Mystery

The Mystery of the Invisible Hand: A Henry Spearman Mystery

Murder at the Margin: A Henry Spearman Mystery

A Deadly Indifference: A Henry Spearman Mystery

The Mystery of the Invisible Hand: A Henry Spearman Mystery

A Deadly Indifference: A Henry Spearman Mystery