Murder at the Margin (Marshall Jevons)

The plot of Murder at the Margin is built around a Virgin Islands resort vacation with Professor Spearman and his wife Pidge. Spearman analyzes everyone he meets or observes from an economic point of view. When an unpleasant and very bossy retired general, Decker, is found dead from poison, Spearman does not agree that the police are doing a good job. He makes his own list of suspects and eliminates them based on one basic economic principle: behavior according to rational choice, the main idea of capitalism. That is, if a suspect does not behave in a way that maximizes the economic benefit (utility) to him, then Spearman looks for explanation of that behavior. By process of elimination, he discovers a conspiracy between married couple and the husband's brother-in-law to take revenge for the general's rigid orders in the Vietnam War years ago. These orders caused the war death of the husband's younger brother. A second murder, of another unpleasant person, Justice Foote, is also committed. That is because

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ian who hates Justice Foote for his anti-black politics. Ricky has no alibi for the time that Foote was killed. That is because he was not performing at the hotel Cinnamon when he should have been. He should have been performing because his musical price doubled on Saturday. But it turns out that this was not irrational behavior from the point of view of marginal utility. Ricky's marginal utility is radical politics. He was not at the Cinnamon because he was collecting "four hundred dollars that day from a brother who's very important to our movement. I couldn't tell the police I'd been with him because they might have tracked him down" (Jevons, 1993, p. 198). Spearman solves the mystery of disappearing Fitzhugh based on Fitzhugh's complaint about the high price of the swimming fins. Fitzhugh tries to purchase the fins, but hotel policy does not allow that. He also complains about a $30 cash deposit, which can be redeemed after fin use. This does not make sense to Spearman because Fitzhugh's maximum gain could be obtained by returning the fins to the hotel. Also, Fitzhugh complains about the high price of ferry drinks. But then Fitzhugh disappears (presumed drowned). This is odd because his suntan lotion bottle is left open on the
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2001
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)