An Imperfect Spy

Kate Fansler is asked to co-teach a course on the law and literature at a not-very-good law school, while her husband Reed is leading a project there to aid women in prison in filing appeals for wrongful convictions. The school is unfortunately very sexist, with the only female law professor having recently died, ostensibly from a fall in front of a truck in New York City’s chaotic traffic; an older staff member, however, thinks this might not have been an accident and she asks Kate to investigate. The more Kate digs into the culture of the school, the more misogynistic she finds it, but whether that in itself is reason enough for murder is another question…. This novel, the eleventh in the series, was published in 1994 and to me show more was chiefly memorable for its bleak view of gender politics in the 1990s; I certainly don’t remember that time as being so very misogynistic, but then I was in San Francisco at the time, not NYC, so perhaps that accounts for it. In any event, Kate and Reed are also going through a rough patch in their marriage, which seems to stem from boredom more than anything else; I found that subplot kind of irritating. Each chapter is prefaced with a quote from John LeCarré’s work, involving espionage, but since I haven’t read those books, the allusions were lost on me. After the gem that was “The Players Come Again,” this one is a bit of a disappointment for me; mildly recommended, but really only for completist readers of the series. show less

In her latest jab at academia's underside, New York City literature professor Kate Fansler team teaches a course in "Women in Law and Literature" at Schuyler Law School while her husband, law professor Reed Amhearst, establishes a student-staffed legal clinic. Along with a like-minded professor and a former teacher who enjoys emulating John le Carre's most famous character, George Smiley, they energize the student body to challenge their conservative teachers. Kate's teaching partner Blair Whitson voices concern that the recent death of a feminist professor at Schuyler might not have been an accident. There are now no women tenured on the faculty. Another faculty member's wife Betty Osborne is in prison for shooting her abusive husband show more . However, the popular consensus at Schuyler is that she murdered her husband for "no reason" One professor says: "Of course he didn't beat her; he was a member of this faculty." The faculty made sure she got the maximum sentence. Just as Kate begins to look into these deaths, she and Blair face a conservative backlash from a surprising quarter, touching off skirmishes sure to shake Schuyler's complacent foundations. While Kate and Reed are as appealing as ever, the real draw of this thinking-reader's mystery is the anger-at the limitations of women's roles in society (imposed and assumed)-that fuels it and its thoroughly disclosed academic setting. show less

Kate Fansler helps reopen case of battered woman as she teaches in hide-bound law school