Customer Reviews

An Imperfect Spy

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Kate Fansler had passed the statistical point of midlife. Nostalgia may be a disabling pressure that signifies retreat. Kate addresses the parents at her old school, the Theban. At the event she is challenged by a secretary from Schuyler Law School that she has never really done anything for the dispossessed, marginal individual.

Reed is to start a clinic at Schuyler Law School. The woman from the secretarial room at Schyler appears in the apartment building of Kate and Reed. She claims her presence proves her point that middle-aged women are invisible. The woman claims that reading John LeCarre has convinced her to become a spy.

The woman has disappeared, shedding her identity. Prior to that she was a professor. The woman calls herself Harriet. Harriet has pursued the couple for reason of Kate's crime-solving reputation. She wants them to investigate the death of a woman professor at Schuyler Law School.

Kate meets the faculty member who is to co-teach her literature and law seminar. Kate is seeking a pleasant change from MIDDLEMARCH. Trying to understand the men she meets at Schuyler, Harriet tells Kate that she has never met a group of bonded males swollen with mediocrity and power. Talking to her male colleague she comes to understand that he has crossed the line, he knows why a women's movement exists. Contemplating the death of the female faculty member causes Kate to go into her investigative mode. Kate goes to see the brother of the dead woman, Nellie Rosenbach.

In the end the mystery surrounding the Harriet character is disclosed. This book includes the battered woman syndrome and a host of feminist issues. This may be Carolyn Heilbrun's best Amanda Cross offering.

What happened to the person who wrote "The James Joyce Murder?"

I can forgive Ms. Fansler for the more obscure literary references, which tend to bore the non- literature scholars, but 212 pages of whining about the plight of women! Only the choir would listen to that sermon.

I'm sorry that some readers so disliked this book, and published really savage reviews. I loved it, and one of the reasons, to be honest, is that I also love John Le Carre, and was very moved by the quotations as well as the whole spy theme. I have also seen, and experienced, sexism in institutions. Perhaps some of the readers are just too young.

Which really brings up the issue of what is fair criticism. Sometimes I read books but realize that the insights and underpinnings of the story are very far from my understanding of reality. But I would never publish a review of a book I can't like for those reasons. I don't think it's fair, and I wouldn't want to discourage people from reading who could enjoy that kind of world view.

If you are widely read, if you love Hardy and the story of Demeter, I think you'll love this book.

What a strange yet boring book. Mostly it blathers on about feminism. Has as it's main character a woman that 'doesn't believe in vacations', who has a rather strange relationship with her husband who happily puts up with her. She is on sabbatical and agrees to help teach a combined law and literature class at a very conservative law school. Some of the students get upset with the class and for some reason keep locking them in. Do they report it to the faculty for disciplinary action against the students--nope. She and the other professor decide to cope with it on there own. There is no mystery in the book. To me the only mystery is why it got published in the first place and why it has glowing review blurbs on the cover and front page from authors I enjoy and respect. I wonder if they even read the book.

When I read a mystery book, I don't expect to be confronted with NO mystery AND a tirade on feminism. A hint of it maybe to give substance to a character definitely, but it has no place in what should be classed as a cozy mystery (assuming there had been one).

This book is overflowing with feminism rants. It's hard to focus on the story when the author is spewing her feminism views all over the place. The main character (a woman) cheats on her husband with married men. And she's happy that she has an understanding husband who tolerates her behavior. I thought feminism was about equality, not about running all over your man. Good thing I borrowed the book. I would not purchase anything written by this author.

Kate and Reed are invited to teach for a semester at a mediocre law school in the city. There are no women tenured on the faculty, the only one was hit by a truck. Another faculty member's wife is in prison for shooting her abusive husband in the chest, ending a long history of abuse. The faculty made sure she got the maximum. Reed is to start a legal clinic for the students and Kate is co teaching a course on literature and the law.

This was a pretty good Fansler mystery. Kate never seems to have to teach at her own university anymore. The characters are interesting and so is the mystery. One point, the prison on Staten Island, Arthur Kill by name, does not have any women in it. Bedford Hills or Taconic in Westchester are not all that far away and would have been better choices.

Her best and that's good

The challenge of white male power in a Law School. Citations from John LeCarre. And A. N. Wilson's words: "Where mediocrity is the norm, it is not long before mediocrity becomes the ideal." And John Le Carre: "I invested my life in institutions - he thought without rancor - and all I am left with is myself."