Kirjahaku

"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 REVIEWKate Fansler is vacationing in the sweet and harmless Berkshires, sorting through the letters of Henry James. But when her next-door neighbor is murdered, and all her houseguests are prime suspects, her idyll turns prosaic, indeed....

Amanda Cross is master of the American literary whodunit. In her delicately menacing short fiction, assembled here in one volume, dangerous impulses seize the most unlikely individuals, and everyday existence is fast eclipsed by the bizarre. Among the compelling intrigues: The cold-blooded murder of Mrs. Byron Lloyd, shot dead during a writers' panel discussion . . . the enigma of the nameless toddler who walks out of the bushes one New England summer afternoon . . . the reappearance of a missing Constable drawing just where it can cause the most trouble . . . and other wonderful mysteries, many of which star the incomparable amateur sleuth Kate Fansler.

Rich and witty, the literary whodunits by Amanda Cross are a delight for readers who like their mysteries smart and suspenseful. Now comes the highly anticipated sequel to her Kate Fansler novel, Honest Doubt, which the Providence Journal called "one of her] best books in years." Here, Cross takes her beloved protagonist into uncharted territory, turning Kate Fansler's world upside down. Just when Kate Fansler thinks life couldn't possibly hold any more surprises, she receives a phone call from Laurence, the eldest of her imperious brothers. But a woman as sharp as Kate knows that the moment one stops believing in life's little bends in the road is the time when it has more twists in store. Kate has always been different from the other Fanslers-a free and independent thinker in a family where propriety and decorum are prized above all. She has always assumed it was because she was the youngest and the only girl in the family. But over a drink with Laurence, Kate's whole understanding of herself is thrown into question as he calmly tells her that a strange man came to his office claiming to be Kate's father-and it's quite possible that she is not a Fansler after all. There are even more dangerous curves in the road for Kate Fansler, especially after she meets the man who calls himself her father. When more life-threatening secrets and lies emerge, Kate and the Fansler family are suddenly pitched perilously close to the edge of doom

"FASCINATING . . . The dialogue is, as always, elegant and polished."--Los Angeles TimesWhile guest-teaching a semester at Schuyler Law School, Kate Fansler gets to know an extraordinary secretary named Harriet, who patterns her life after John le Carr 's character George Smiley. Harriet reveals that Schuyler has some serious skeletons swinging in its perfectly appointed closets, including the fate of Schuyler's only tenured female professor and a faculty wife who has killed her husband. As if Kate doesn't have enough to tackle, she is also up against the men who comprise the faculty of Schuyler itself--a thoroughly unapologetic bastion of white male power, mediocrity, and misogyny. Although she has only a few months on campus, Kate refuses to let Schuyler's rigid ideals and insistence on secrecy suppress her indefatigable curiosity--or her obsession with the truth. . . ."Cross manages to keep this book as lighthearted and witty as any of the Kate Fansler mysteries, while depicting an institution as lethal as any cold war."--Marilyn French"A funny, snappish polemic on political correctitude that takes great relish in Kate's sardonic views."--The New York Times Book Review

"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 REVIEWWhen 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 needs to understand her death....

When Winifred, the niece of a renowned British novelist goes missing after she agreed to be interviewed for her esteemed aunt's biography, the biographer taps Kate Fansler to find her. Kate spots clues all right, but finding the person is a lot trickier than she thought....

Student riots have ravaged the distinguished New York City university where Kate Fansler teaches.In the ensuing disarray, the survival of the university's plebeian stepchild, University College, seems doubtful. President Jeremiah Cudlipp is snobbishly determined to ax it; and as sycophantic professors fall in line behind him, the rally of Kate and few rebellious colleagues seems doomed. It is a fight to the death, and only a miracle--or perhaps a murder--can save their beloved institution. . . ."

For a century, wealthy New York girls have been trained for the rigors of upper class life at the Theban, an exclusive private school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Kate Fansler is lured back to her alma mater to teach a seminar on Antigone. But a hostile note addressed to Kate, the uniform mistrustfulness of her six, bright students, and the Dobermans that patrol the building at night suggest trouble on the spot. As Kate leads her class through the inexorable tragic unfolding of Antigone, a parallel nightmare envelops the school and everyone connected with it. . . .

When beautiful Janet Harrison asks English professor Kate Fansler to recommend a Manhattan psychoanalyst, Kate immediately sends the girl to her dear friend and former lover, Dr. Emanuel Bauer. Seven weeks later, the girl is stabbed to death on Emanuel's couch--with incriminating fingerprints on the murder weapon. To Kate, the idea of her brilliant friend killing anyone is preposterous, but proving it seems an impossible task. For Janet had no friends, no lover, no family. Why, then, should someone feel compelled to kill her? Kate's analytic techniques leave no stone unturned--not even the one under which a venomous killer once again lies coiled and ready to strike. . . . KATE FANSLER IS "AN AMATEUR DETECTIVE IN THE FINEST TRADITION." --The New York Times "YOU'LL BE ENTERTAINED RIGHT UP TO THE TIME YOU FIND OUT WHO MADE THE FREUDIAN SLIP." --Buffalo Evening News "YOU'LL LOVE IT ALL AND BEG FOR MORE." --Saturday Review

When Janet Harrison asks her English Professor Kate Fansler to recommend a psychoanalyst, no one could have imagined that Janet’s body would be discovered on his couch two months later.Kate can’t believe that her old friend Emanuel Bauer could be a murderer, even though Janet was killed in his office using a knife from his kitchen. With help from a team of close companions she sets out to discover the truth, something the police seem happy to ignore.Could the killer be the advertising executive who had his appointment before Janet? Or the lecturer who attends the appointment afterwards? And what about the handsome doctor in the office across the hall?Amanda Cross’s tense, taut mystery In the Last Analysis will keep you enthralled and on the edge of your seat until the very last page.‘Amanda Cross delighted readers with Kate Fansler . . . the hero we’d been waiting all our lives for’ - Sara Paretsky, author of the V.I. Warshawski novels.Follow amateur sleuth Kate Fansler in this gripping murder mystery series, continuing with The James Joyce Murder and Poetic Justice.

Amanda Cross musters up an ingenious solution to an impossible scenario in this penetrating literary mystery, The James Joyce Murder.On the famous Joycean day of June 16th, Kate Fansler attends the annual Bloomsday celebration, kicking off the start to an idyllic and literary summer. But in the company of an exuberant young nephew and two graduate students, there is not much time for peace and quiet.The idyll is further shattered when an unpleasant next-door neighbour is found murdered. Although the murder appears to have no connection to the day’s celebrations, no one can shake the suspicion that James Joyce is somehow linked, not even unliterary police inspector Stratton.Kate is determined to find the solution to this extraordinary murder, even if she finds the culprit in her own home . . .Follow amateur sleuth Kate Fansler in this gripping murder mystery series, continuing with Poetic Justice and The Theban Mysteries.

It’s New York City, 1970, and student riots have ravaged the university where Professor Kate Fansler teaches Victorian literature to mature students. The survival of the University College is in doubt, especially as their President Jeremiah Cudlipp is determined to shut it down.In the midst of balancing dissertation proposals with the politics of academia, Kate is faced with insurmountable odds. But armed with a handful of rebellious colleagues, the poetry of W. H. Auden, and her new fiancé, she is not one to give up. Kate is willing to fight to the death for her college, but only a miracle – or perhaps a murder – can save their beloved institution . . .Littered with verses of Auden, Amanda Cross’s Poetic Justice is a passionate and gripping mystery. Follow amateur sleuth Kate Fansler in this murder mystery series, continuing with The Theban Mysteries and The Question of Max.

Literature professor and amateur sleuth Kate Fansler is taking a well-earned sabbatical with her new husband, Reed. However, her martini filled evenings are soon interrupted by a desperate appeal from her former and beloved Theban School to cover classes on Antigone.Not wanting to deprive students from Antigone’s brilliance she rushes to New York, finding the Greek heroine’s subversive will mirrored in her students who are caught up in the rebellion of protests, sex, and drugs.All is fun and chaos until a dead body is discovered in the old school building, can Kate get to the bottom of this sinister literary allusion?Amanda Cross’s The Theban Mysteries will take you back to your school years and capture your attention till the very end.Follow amateur sleuth Kate Fansler in this gripping murder mystery series, continuing with The Question of Max and No Word From Winifred.

Amanda Cross probes into the shadowy past of Cecily Hutchings and her Bloomsbury-like literary circle in The Question of Max, a gripping whodunit from start to end.Once again, Kate Fansler tries to take a break from her full time career as a literature professor and amateur sleuth. She finds refuge in a rural retreat – the last place she thought her friend Max would come to visit.When he asks to be driven to the home of a recently deceased family friend Kate can't resist the opportunity to learn more about of one of her literary heroes, Cecily Hutchins. But what starts as a light-hearted trip to the coast of Maine, ends with Kate discovering a body on the rocky shore. A body of one of her students.Kate takes it upon herself to find out what really happened. Can her own presence at the scene just be a coincidence? And how much can she really trust Max?Follow amateur sleuth Kate Fansler in this gripping murder mystery series, continuing with No Word From Winifred and A Trap for Fools.

Amanda Cross captivates us with strong women and astounding adventure in this gripping mystery, No Word From Winifred.Literature Professor Kate Fansler is asked once again to turn her talents to private investigation when Winifred Ashby – honorary niece of Oxford scholar and novelist Charlotte Stanton – inexplicably disappears from her quiet farmhand life.Using Winifred’s journal and Charlotte’s novels as her only available sources, Kate must follow a convoluted trail through Oxford to Santa Cruz before finally untangling the secrets of Winifred’s past.But Kate's investigation reveals far more than she anticipated as sinister issues of illegitimacy and inheritance arise . . . Follow amateur sleuth Kate Fansler in this gripping murder mystery series, continuing with A Trap for Fools and The Players Come Again.

Taking its name from a Rudyard Kipling poem and littered with his verses throughout, A Trap for Fools is a novel about overcoming adversity, and one of Amanda Cross’s best mysteries.Campus security found the body of Canfield Adams early on Sunday morning, seven stories below the open window of his office. To the police there is one easy assumption, but anyone who knew Canfield knows he would never have jumped. University officials ask literature Professor and amateur sleuth Kate Fansler to investigate the death of their precious professor, and she find a myriad of people, both on and off campus, who could have pushed him. However, Kate suspects the university has an ulterior motive . . . . . . and she herself is not sure she wants to succeed, for the murderer may be someone she cares about, a student, a colleague, a friend?‘If by some cruel oversight you haven’t discovered Amanda Cross, you have an uncommon pleasure in store for you’ New York Times Book ReviewFollow amateur sleuth Kate Fansler in this gripping murder mystery series, continuing with The Players Come Again.

Amanda Cross examines relationships and human nature in The Players Come Again, a thought-provoking novel about literature, feminism and ageing.The 80s are coming to a close and Kate Fansler is using this time to tie up loose ends. Having completed a work of literary criticism – and vowing it will be her last – Kate enjoys lunch with editor Simon Pearlstine, indulging in her usual vodka martini.There is no rest for the wicked as he commissions her to write a biography of reclusive Gabrielle Foxx, the quiet wife of a famous modernist author. Kate discovers there is more to Gabrielle than meets the eye, and in order to trace the Foxx family’s complicated history she must track down three important women from Gabrielle’s past: Anne, Dorinda and Nellie.But the further Kate probes into Gabrielle’s history the darker the secrets she uncovers . . .‘I salute this latest work as being among the best she has written, if not the best’ - Antonia Fraser