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"If by some cruel oversight you haven't discovered Amanda Cross, you have an uncommon pleasure in store for you." THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW When Clare College's resident eccentric Patrice Umphelby is found drowned in the campus lake, it's called a suicide. But the college president grows suspicious and calls in noted professor/detective Kate Fansler to research the matter. Ingratiating herself with her academic colleagues to learn more about Patrice's life, Kate digs up the evidence she show more needs to understand her death.... show lessTags
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Patrice Umphelby, a history professor and novelist, has killed herself by walking into a lake with stones in her pocket. Unfortunately this occurred on the campus of an East Coast women’s college, which is unhappy about the notoriety ithas caused, and Kate Fansler is recruited to look into this event with an eye toward restoring the school’s reputation. When Kate learns that Patrice was indeed planning to commit suicide, only not just *then*, she decides that something rather more sinister must have been going on…. As usual, this seventh novel in the Kate Fansler series is replete with quotations and pithy moments, especially with regard to the need for women’s colleges, the pros and cons of womens’ studies programs, and the show more overarching theme of death and perceptions about death. I especially enjoyed the discussions of womens’ studies because so many of the rants against the idea ring so hollow (and did when this book was written in the early 1980s). Kate herself is always engaging and although I’m getting tired of the frequent drinking/smoking scenarios, at least the author acknowledges those by making wry comments about how old-fashioned Kate’s habits are! Quite fun overall; recommended. show less
Here's what I like in a mystery: well-developed characters, suspense, and a complex plot that requires the sleuth to prove their skill or intellect.
What was missing from this mystery: all the above.
At first I was encouraged by the English teacher-as-sleuth, the opening quotes in each chapter from woman authors like Stevie Smith, Virginia Woolf, and Toni Morrison, and a the literary discussion around the edges of the plot. The mystery was pretty standard stuff: a female professor is found dead on the campus of a women's college, and it's deemed a suicide until information comes to light making murder a possibility.
Kate Fansler, the aforementioned English teacher, is called in to investigate. Why? I'm not sure. She had a tenuous show more connection to the victim, Patrice Umphelby, having met her once while waiting for a delayed flight. Kate is also connected to two men writing Patrice's biography, who have put their project on hold until the circumstances of her death are known. The college brings Kate on board, ostensibly to take part in an academic task force, but really to give her free rein to talk to anyone on staff as part of her investigation.
And talk she does. Most of the "action" involves Kate attending meetings or cocktail parties, and inquiring about Patrice. People are clearly divided -- love her or hate her -- and they make their opinions known. Two camps emerge, Kate tramps around New York and New England consuming Laphroig whiskey, and then, ta da! With ten pages to go she explains what happened, everyone is very thankful, the end.
This was all way too simple for me. Yes, it was murder, not suicide. Surprise, someone who hated Patrice did it. I could have guessed that early on, but dismissed the notion, expecting the plot to be more complex. There was no suspense involved in nabbing the perpetrator -- there was only Kate, quaffing another whiskey, basking in the admiration of those who should have been able to figure this out for themselves.
This is the seventh book in a series, and maybe I've missed something by not reading the back story. But I'm probably not going to find out. show less
What was missing from this mystery: all the above.
At first I was encouraged by the English teacher-as-sleuth, the opening quotes in each chapter from woman authors like Stevie Smith, Virginia Woolf, and Toni Morrison, and a the literary discussion around the edges of the plot. The mystery was pretty standard stuff: a female professor is found dead on the campus of a women's college, and it's deemed a suicide until information comes to light making murder a possibility.
Kate Fansler, the aforementioned English teacher, is called in to investigate. Why? I'm not sure. She had a tenuous show more connection to the victim, Patrice Umphelby, having met her once while waiting for a delayed flight. Kate is also connected to two men writing Patrice's biography, who have put their project on hold until the circumstances of her death are known. The college brings Kate on board, ostensibly to take part in an academic task force, but really to give her free rein to talk to anyone on staff as part of her investigation.
And talk she does. Most of the "action" involves Kate attending meetings or cocktail parties, and inquiring about Patrice. People are clearly divided -- love her or hate her -- and they make their opinions known. Two camps emerge, Kate tramps around New York and New England consuming Laphroig whiskey, and then, ta da! With ten pages to go she explains what happened, everyone is very thankful, the end.
This was all way too simple for me. Yes, it was murder, not suicide. Surprise, someone who hated Patrice did it. I could have guessed that early on, but dismissed the notion, expecting the plot to be more complex. There was no suspense involved in nabbing the perpetrator -- there was only Kate, quaffing another whiskey, basking in the admiration of those who should have been able to figure this out for themselves.
This is the seventh book in a series, and maybe I've missed something by not reading the back story. But I'm probably not going to find out. show less
rabck from Bumma's book distribution; lovely cozy mystery. Clare College Professor Patrice committed suicide - or did she? Almost a year after her death, the college president asks Kate to investigate, under the guise of serving on a task force about offering gender studies at this all girls college. References to lots of literature to explain people's actions (the author was really a college professor), which had me scurrying to Wikipedia - and learning a lot! Was it or wasn't it strings out to the last page, with the who dun it being a surprise.
Another investigation for Kate Fansler starts when the biographers of Patrice Umphelby, who died apparently by suicide a year earlier, call on her for help, as does the principal of the exclusive women-only college where Patrice was working at the time of her death. Kate's visit to the college, ostensibly as member of a working party on the introduction of a Gender Studies course, reveals that the dead woman was loved by some and hated by others. More disturbing evidence emerges about a hoax apparently perpetrated by a fraudulent doctor. The denouement is enjoyable but not very plausible.
I don't know what to think of this book now. I enjoyed it at the time, even if I didn't always agree with it, but after the author committed suicide in a manner consistent with some of the views expressed here, I haven't been able to look at this book.
Kate Fansler is so appealing as a protagonist. Smart, opinionated, sure.
Patrice Umphelby s'est-elle vraiment suicidée ? Bien sûr, elle proférait des théories peu habituelles sur la mort et revendiquait le droit de choisir sa fin, mais de là à passer à l'acte... Universitaire reconnue, romancière à succès, Patrice dérangeait. Son dynamisme, son courage et sa force de vie faisaient de l'ombre aux théoriciens qui mettent la femme d'un certain âge sur une voie de garage. Face aux rumeurs persistantes, l'université de Patrice fait appel à Kate Fansler, femme accomplie et indépendante, professeur de littérature, également connue dans le milieu universitaire pour ses talents de détective.
Avec, en toile de fond, une réflexion novatrice sur la place des femmes dans l'université et dans la show more société, cette nouvelle enquête de Kate Fansler offre une solide intrigue et une galerie de portraits pour le moins inquiétants. show less
Avec, en toile de fond, une réflexion novatrice sur la place des femmes dans l'université et dans la show more société, cette nouvelle enquête de Kate Fansler offre une solide intrigue et une galerie de portraits pour le moins inquiétants. show less
Jan 9, 2012French
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Sweet Death, Kind Death
- Original publication date
- 1983
- People/Characters
- Kate Fansler; Patrice Umphelby
- Important places
- Clare College, Boston, Massachusetts, USA (fictional)
- Epigraph
- Why do I think of Death
As a friend?
It is because he is a scatterer,
He scatters the human frame
The nerviness and the great pain,
Throws it on the fresh fresh air
And now it is nowhere.
Only sweet de... (show all)ath does this,
Sweet Death, kind Death,
Of all the gods you are best.
Stevie Smith - Dedication
- For David Hadas/To mark a quarter-century of conversations about death and life
- First words
- The New York City memorial service for Patrice Umphelby (for she had, of course, had a funeral service at Clare College many months earlier), was attended by Kate Fansler and several hundred other people, all of whom found it... (show all) uniquely moving.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)'Eat your lemon chicken, Herbert,' Archer said.
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