Murder Against the Grain by Emma Lathen

It was 1968, and Russia and the United States, hoping to overcome the tension of their relationship, had agreed to a deal in which Russia would buy wheat from the United States. The Sloan Guaranty Trust was involved in handing the financial transactions of this agreement.  The Russians would deposit the money for the wheat in a bank in London for the wheat. The bank in London would then send the money to the Sloan, and the Sloan would pay the grain broker in the United States. When the chief of the Commercial Deposits Division, Victor Quentin, received the Russian bills of lading for a shipment, he issued a check for $985,000, and sent it by messenger to Stringfellow and Son who were the grain brokers for the deal. Four days later, Quentin received a note from Stringfellow asking where the payment was. It was then that Quentin realized that the initial invoice and documents which he had received were  remarkably good forgeries and that the Sloan Guaranty Trust had been robbed of $985,000.

This, of course, was brought immediately to the attention of John Putnam Thatcher, a vice-president of the bank, and Thatcher immediately started investigating. He started by following the trail of the messenger who had delivered the invoice and who had taken the check to Luke Stringfellow at the Registry of Deeds. This messanger was the chauffeur of Abe Baranoff, a wealthy impresario who arranged cultural visits between the US and Russia. This chauffeur was Gus Denger who worked for a private limousine service, and who only worked for Baranoff half a year. Denger said that he had taken the envelope with the check to the Registry and had given it to a man who implied that he was Stringfellow. Denger would later be murdered on the steps of the Russian Consulate.

Thatcher's investigation led to a tangle of paths through the world of US and Russian relations. He visited Abe Baranoff who was arranging a tour of a group of performing Russian otters through the United States. He received a visit from Hosmer Chuddley, a farmer, who wanted to send US farmers to Russia to improve agriculture there instead of sending wheat. He conducted a tour of New York for Mikhail Maseryan of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who wanted to see the protesting youth of the US. Then there was the potato chip delegation, and the Cuban Navy barricading New York harbor. Thatcher became aware that he was spending very little time in the relative peace and quiet of his office at the Sloan. His investigation with the help of  Mikhail Maseryan and Inspector Lyons of the New York Police Department eventually resulted in the discovery of the thieves.

This is a serious book, but it does have moments of humor resulting from the state of Russian American relations at the time when it was written. Thatcher is an intelligent and sympathetic detective.  Anthony Boucher said of Thatcher that he was "a completely civilized and urbane man whose charm is as remarkable as his acumen." This book was written in 1967, and only used copies are now available.