This book is interesting mostly as a thinly disguised rant, a fictional depiction of the world as seen through the eyes of Carolyn Heilbrun, the English professor who eventually disclosed her identity as the pseudonymous Amanda Cross.It's a world of old-boy networks in which women have to scratch and scrabble for any type of recognition and professional relationships are built on mistrust, dishonesty, and ruthless game-playing. The picture Heilbrun paints of the academic world, both in fiction and in her memoir, The Last Gift of Time: Life Beyond Sixty, is cynical and sad. The elements would probably be much the same if she happened to be one of the first women directors of a large corporation or one of the first women astronauts or one of the first women to do anything. She was a feminist (a literary feminist), and she was chronically angry.Perhaps that's why this book seems to have disappointed many readers whose comments appear below: it's not really a mystery, and it's not really about her usual protagonist, Kate Fansler, or any other character. It seems to me that Honest Doubt was all about her, Carolyn Heilbrun, and the bitterness that was an established part of her take on the world at the time the novel was written.
Is it cheating to openly base your mystery plot on a famous Agatha Christie one? And I can see why an author would like to write about her main protagonist from a second person's point of view, but that second person seemed more than a bit hero-worshipping, which struck me as being self-serving on the part of the author. I didn't care for how the lead character's self image so thoroughly revolved about her excess weight, but that is understandable in view of the current prejudices, and turned out, as I had hoped, to be relevant to the plot.Ms. Fansler writes so well that I would eagerly devour any other mysteries she writes, whether or not I have minor quibbles with them.
Do You like book Honest Doubt (2001)?
advertised as a Kate Fansler mystery, but she’s playing an advisory role to main character, the very large PI Estelle "Woody" Woodhouse who is hired to find the murderer of Prof. Charles Haycock. All of his colleagues had motive and opportunity and Woody learns that they all did kill him in a group effort. Did not like characters, plot or writing style. No more Amanda Cross.
—Ruth
Amanda Cross aka Dr. Carolyn G. Heilbrun, the Avalon Foundation Professor of Humanities (Emerita) at Columbia University intimately knows the academic world and it shows. This is the 13th book in the Kate Fansler series but, in this outing, Kate only plays a minor role. Professor Charles Haycock of the Clifton College English Department is killed at a faculty party from an overdose of his own heart medication which had been placed in a bottle of Greek retsina. And who is sorry that he is dead? No one. Haycock hated women, was nasty to his colleagues, and his removal from the department was met with across the board relief. I've been teaching in colleges since 1980 (Good Lord, that is a long time. I'm going to have to lie down after I finish typing this.) and Heilbrun captures with an expert eye the political infighting and backstabbing that is so widespread among the faculty in many institutions of higher education. Much of this book was like a trip down Memory Lane. And the "solving" of the crime is an homage to a classic mystery novel by one of the genre's best known authors. Very enjoyable.
—Judy
