Customer Reviews

The Edge of Doom (Kate Fansler Mystery)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I hadn't read an Amanda Cross mystery in years, but I remember being fond of her feminist academic Kate Fansler, so I gave this one a try. I'm sad to say that this one is way off form. The plot is contrived in order to conform to a group of Shakespearean quotations - a conceit that has been far better by other writers - and although it is somewhat convoluted even I, who am generally not one to figure things out before the author explains, was able to see what was coming a mile away.

Further, I have to say that the character development was wooden, the mechanism of the plot was creaky, the dialog stilted. I did enjoy some of the academic overtones, but that probably isn't enough to give this one a recommendation.

Scott Morrison

When I came across the Kate Fansler mystery series a decade or so ago, I fell in love with them. The heroine was-still is-as dry as a martini, sophisticated, intelligent,aristocratic and independent. In many ways, she is a version of Katherine Hepburn.
However, in the past few years, the series has faltered. In part, I believe this is because Cross has kept her heroine contemporary (based on the original books she should be in her 70's or 80's but she is still in her 50s).
The Edge of Doom is an enjoyable, if not the most enjoyable, addition to the series. Fansler finds out that she has a long lost father who has a shady past and present. Part of the book's mystery lies in unlocking that past and present-and dodging all sorts of evildoers out to get her-and part of the mystery lies in her unlocking her own family's past. As always, Cross's depiction of sophisticated Manhattan life adds plenty of favor to the book.
I would recommend this book to die hard Amanda Cross junkies and to individuals who like books with dry and wry heroines. (Though if you've never read Cross, start with the earlier ones.) I wouldn't recommend this book to individuals who have been lukewarm on Cross in the past (this book won't change your mind) or who need action packed, adventure filled mysteries.

Literature Professor Kate Fansler thinks that, at 50, she knows everything she needs to know about her family. When her brother calls and tells her that a man claims to be her father and can prove it by a DNA test, Kate's world is turned on its head. Jay Smith may be Kate's father, but he clearly holds several more secrets close to his heart. His background seems to have holes in it--and his stories are a little too convenient and self-serving for Kate's peace of mind.

Author Amanda Cross (Carolyn G. Heilbrun) writes with an approachable style that keeps the pages turning. I found myself, however, more and more unsympathetic toward Kate. Her attitude toward her family--disinterest and contempt, might be appropriate and justified, but this wasn't clear from the book. Kate's reaction toward her late life discovery that she might not be the person she always thought she was seems mediated by literature rather than honestly felt (okay, Kate is a Literature Professor so this is not totally out of line, but still, I never really felt the emotional impact of such an important event).

For a 56 year old woman who finds out her father was not really her father, Kate is amazingly unchanged by the experience. This is the first book I have read in the series and I found Kate cold, arrogant and insufferable. Good writing but I won't pick up another Amananda Cross.

Those of us who are fans of this bibliophile's dream of a series remember that amateur detective Kate Fansler played a more or less peripheral role in Amanda Cross' last novel, "Honest Doubt", which precipitated her new heroine, feisty PI Estelle 'Woody' Woodhaven, head first (and over her head without Kate's help) into murder in academia. Hopefully, we have not seen the last of Woody, but what a joy it is to have Kate take center stage again in "The Edge of Doom". As Kate well might put it about her Cross progenitor, "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety." With her usual panache, she has presented Kate with a fascinating and almost diabolical problem: a possible case of mistaken identity...her own. Kate, as the youngest Fansler child, has always felt herself something of a changeling in the family structure, alienated from their stuffy conventionalism by her own far more liberal attitudes, behaviors and beliefs. However, when her oldest brother Lawrence brings her the startling news that she may not legitimately be a Fansler at all; that one Jason E. Smith had appeared in his office out of the blue claiming that Kate was the result of a love affair that he had had with their mother well over fifty years ago, obviously Kate and her attorney husband Reed have to take some action, but what? Meet him? Ignore him? After DNA testing confirms Smith's claim, it opens a veritable Pandora's box of possibilities and questions. Who is Smith really? What does he want? Why has he suddenly chosen to appear in Kate's life? And, most importantly, why does he equally suddenly and mysteriously choose to disappear? Following much confusion worse confounded (and from her POV confounded confusion!)coupled with a hair-breath encounter with a killer, Kate is finally able to make sense out of a convoluted pattern of decades-old crimes and misdemeanors, lay her own ghosts happily to rest and eventually resolve matters in such a way that even the stuffy Fanslers can find at least tolerably acceptable.

There is so much pleasure built-in to sharing Kate's world: characters who come insistently to life, precise plotting that moves briskly and intriguingly from event to event, and, above all, a literary style that has delighted me for over thirty years. Amanda Cross paints verbal pictures that linger in my mind, and she reminds me with every paragraph that conversation is indeed an art and not a lost one so long as she, Kate and Reed are around to keep it flowing. "The Edge of Doom" is a warm and witty novel to be savored...I certainly did.

Though better than the previous novel in the Kate Fansler series (that is, Honest Doubt), The Edge of Doubt lacks some of the cleverness of the best of the series, such as The James Joyce Murder; Sweet Death, Kind Death; and Poetic Justice. Readers do discover that Kate's birthday is in 1950. Her oldest of three brothers, Laurence, appears just as obnoxious as he is in earlier novels (particularly No Word from Winifred).

No one dies in the narrative present of this novel. Kate's investigation, if it qualifies as detecting, involves trying to discover more about the man who shows up to prove that he is her biological father. The circumstances of the plot do allow Kate to reflect on her views of the "nature versus nurture" argument.

This book was rather boring, i waited for something interesting to happen throughout the whole book, sadly nothing came.

This has to be one of the worst books I've ever read!. I can't believed I finished it. I set it aside many times and felt that it had to get better so I finally finished it. What a waste of time! It's dialogue was so stilted and unbelievable. The main character is so cold and restrained and she is suppose to be so intellectual. She supposedly didn't even know that the 'witness protection agency' was real; she thought it was a 'made for tv' concept.

I think the author should stick to her day job. Although I shudder to think she might be teaching my daughter in her college years.

And what was with her political agenda being pushed in one paragraph half way through the book? It had nothing to do with the story and just seemed to be so out of place.

Do yourself a favor and pass on this one! There are so many better books out there.

At age fifty-six, Kate Fansler feels very contented with her life. She's very happy in her marriage to Reed, loves her job as a professor teaching literature to graduate students, and has made peace with the fact that she and her three brothers have nothing in common and very rarely see each other. Thus she is surprised when her oldest brother Laurnce calls with an urgent request to meet at his club.

When she arrives, he tells her that a man going by the name Jason Smith claims to be her biological father and is willing to take a DNA test to prove it. Kate agrees to this and when the results are in, the tests prove conclusively that he is her sire. Kate wants to get to know her father, not realizing that she is in danger from a killer who needs to avenge a crime committed twenty-five years ago involving Jay even if it means using innocent dupes like her as a tool to insure success.

It is always a treat to read a Kate Fansler mystery and THE EDGE OF DOOM is no exception. Readers get to know the heroine in a way they never have before and they will feel closer to her as they are privy to her thought processes. Fans of Shakespeare and literary mysteries will definitely want to read Amanda Cross's latest work, a novel that humanizes her heroine

Harriet Klausner

I have read all of the previous Kate Fansler novels so looked forward to this one. Alas, the prose is stiff and formal while the plot barely moves from page to page.
The converstaion is so perfect, almost literary. Perhaps there are people who speak like this everyday but it does not make for exciting reading. I appreciate good writing and well edited books but this one comes across more like emotionless non-fiction.