Honest Doubt

October 30, 2000
In her 13th Kate Fansler novel (after The Puzzled Heart), Cross lets her mask of pseudonymity slip, building her plot and characters out of the myriad impressions of vicious, small-minded academic infighting she has amassed as the real-life Carolyn G. Heilbrun, Columbia University humanities prof and past president of the Modern Language Association. Introducing a new investigator, heavy, mid-30ish, motorcycle riding PI Estelle "Woody" Woodhaven, Cross pulls Fansler onto the sidelines to serve as charming adviser in a murder case set at insular, fictitious Clifton College in New Jersey. When Charles Haycock, a reactionary Tennyson scholar, drops dead at a Christmas party, poisoned via an overdose of heart medicine placed in his private bottle of Greek retsina, Woody is hired by Clifton's English department to find the killer. Soon she turns to Fansler in despair at academicians' double-talk. In a gentle, courtly style that rubs off awkwardly on the much-younger Woody, college professor Fansler shares her rueful insights into the bias and petty tyrannical old-boying that has mired contemporary academia in irrelevance and mediocrity. As wry and charming as Fansler is, however, Woody's exasperation soon rubs off on the reader. Virtually all the characters Woody interviews end up spouting off about what a dull and noxious little bog Clifton College is. All agree that the dead man was so sexist and such a nut that the world is better off without him. Alas, the redoubtable Cross has produced a kind of mystery emeritus, a meandering reflection on a kind of cultural crime that cannot be satisfyingly solved.

August 9, 2000
Fans of the "Kate Fansler" mystery series will be glad to see that the literary sleuth is back, this time as a consultant to private eye Estelle "Woody" Woodhaven, who is investigating the murder of misogynistic Tennyson scholar Charles Hancock. Woody, a down-to-earth, overweight sleuth, is a likable foil to the elegant, erudite Kate. In her 13th installment of the series, Cross (the pseudonym for feminist literary scholar Carolyn Heilbrun) deftly skewers the academic establishment as Woody uncovers the political feuding and literary fanaticism that led to the murder of Professor Hancock. Devotees of the series may be disappointed at Kate's relatively minor role, but they will be amply compensated by the delightful Woody, who tools around New York City on her motorbike solving crimes yet is always poignantly aware of the way other people react to her portly physique. Highly recommended.--Jane la Plante, Minot State Univ., ND

Copyright 2000 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2000
Although Cross' latest excursion into murder in the rarefied atmosphere of academia is billed as a Kate Fansler mystery (Fansler appeared as Cross' English prof-sleuth in 12 previous puzzles), Fansler makes only a few consulting cameos here. The bulk of the book belongs to narrator Estelle Woodhaven, a New York private eye who decides to tap into Fansler's knowledge about academics as she investigates the poisoning murder of a Victorian lit professor, a confirmed misogynist, at a small college in New Jersey. Woodhaven's question for Fansler is whether English departments are likely to harbor a murderer. Cross spends more time answering that question (even though her readers already know her feelings about cutthroat colleagues) than she does in piecing together a satisfying mystery. The result is more ethnography than mystery. Cross' fans, however, will probably welcome a new Fansler, however tenuous her connection to the actual detective work.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)