Poetic Justice

Maybe even 4.5*, just because I do so love an academic setting for a mystery!

An academic mystery which deals with the internal politics & struggles of the faculty of a major (unnamed) New York city university is the kind of mystery I would have loved to write myself. Written in 1970, student unrest provides the background to the situation but as anyone who has been a college or university professor knows, the factions & committees etc. could have been taking place at any time. I had a few laughs (such as at the doctoral dissertation defense meeting & the professor describing a recent play he had attended) as well.

I loved the Auden quotes at the start of each chapter & throughout the text; I will have read his poetry for myself sometime show more soon! show less

This is one of my all time Amanda Cross favorites. No one who went through the student revolutions of the Sixties can read this hilarious account of a student uprising at an (unnamed) university in New York City without a pang of memory. Full disclosure: I was at Berkeley during the Free Speech Movement, and I laugh out loud every time I read this. The murder and investigation are almost secondary to the background of students standing on window ledges and chanting slogans, and exhausted faculty trying to keep the university going against all odds. The book is also permeated, in a way that charms me, with the poetry and work of W. H. Auden, who is an offstage presence throughout the entire story, relevant because his poetry sums up what show more the main characters feel about the ongoing events. show less

Maybe even 4.5*, just because I do so love an academic setting for a mystery!

An academic mystery which deals with the internal politics & struggles of the faculty of a major (unnamed) New York city university is the kind of mystery I would have loved to write myself. Written in 1970, student unrest provides the background to the situation but as anyone who has been a college or university professor knows, the factions & committees etc. could have been taking place at any time. I had a few laughs (such as at the doctoral dissertation defense meeting & the professor describing a recent play he had attended) as well.

I loved the Auden quotes at the start of each chapter & throughout the text; I will have read his poetry for myself sometime show more soon! show less

There has been a lot of upheaval at the College in recent months, and Kate Fansler is reluctantly drawn into various groups trying to effect change in the light of student revolts. One change in particular is to bring University College, a former extension program now including degree courses, into the fold of the College as a whole. A reasonable idea, Kate thinks, but there are powerful people at the College who oppose it vehemently. When one of those people dies unexpectedly as a result of an allergic reaction, Kate and assistant district attorney Reed Amhearst, her fiance, try to determine whether that death was purely an accident or if there is a more sinister explanation…. This is the third Kate Fansler novel, published in 1970 show more and set against the backdrop of student activism in that era. I felt that the whole “student revolution” theme was treated very dismissively, although the students themselves were very earnest about their demands in the real world, but I suppose long-serving academics might well have felt that way. In terms of the infighting and politics of the school itself, all rings especially true in this story, at least with respect to what I know about such situations (having worked in an academic setting myself and also knowing numerous people more deeply ensconced in that environment). All that said, though, somehow Kate came across as rather more waspish in this novel as compared to the earlier ones, and I found myself not liking her very much for most of the book. Not enough to prevent me from reading further into the series, but I’m a little more impatient with her at the moment; therefore, mildly recommended. show less

This is my second Amanda Cross mystery. I enjoyed it more than my first one: my expectations being considerably lowered. But really! Had she no editor? One character's name was alternatively spelled CARTIER or CARRIER. She spent three quarters of the book establishing that academic politics are rampant. Evidently those professors we considered nuts (back in the day) actually might have been.

On the positive side. I must admit the classical vocabulary had me looking up words on nearly each page. Impressive. Doctor Seuss was challenged to write a book with a limited vocabulary of 50 words: he wrote the classic _Green Eggs and Ham_. I think Cross was similarly challenged and wrote this book with a dictionary of obscure words!

Let us hope show more book #4 is better..... show less

I enjoyed this, as with earlier books in the series, but I found the number of characters terribly confusing. I couldn’t keep straight the vast number of professors, and didn’t think they were all strictly necessary. I also found myself a little put-off this time by all the chatter about W.H. Auden, et al. Still, I enjoyed it and plan to keep going. On a different note, the off-hand references to institutionalized sexism (some professors don’t like working with women, a secretary says she would quit if any women joined the department, etc.) really shocked me. My mother was a teenager when this book was written!

An amusing story of murder in the midst of campus politics and upheaval. Not sure I understand Kate's contributions to the solution. It hasn't motivated me to seek out more of the series.