The Edge of Doom

Rating:
Summary: strong Kate Fansler mystery
Review: At age fifty-six, Kate Fansler feels very contented with her life. She's very happy in her marriage to Reed, loves her job as a professor teaching literature to graduate students, and has made peace with the fact that she and her three brothers have nothing in common and very rarely see each other. Thus she is surprised when her oldest brother Laurnce calls with an urgent request to meet at his club.

When she arrives, he tells her that a man going by the name Jason Smith claims to be her biological father and is willing to take a DNA test to prove it. Kate agrees to this and when the results are in, the tests prove conclusively that he is her sire. Kate wants to get to know her father, not realizing that she is in danger from a killer who needs to avenge a crime committed twenty-five years ago involving Jay even if it means using innocent dupes like her as a tool to insure success.

It is always a treat to read a Kate Fansler mystery and THE EDGE OF DOOM is no exception. Readers get to know the heroine in a way they never have before and they will feel closer to her as they are privy to her thought processes. Fans of Shakespeare and literary mysteries will definitely want to read Amanda Cross's latest work, a novel that humanizes her heroine

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: strong Kate Fansler mystery
Review: At age fifty-six, Kate Fansler feels very contented with her life. She's very happy in her marriage to Reed, loves her job as a professor teaching literature to graduate students, and has made peace with the fact that she and her three brothers have nothing in common and very rarely see each other. Thus she is surprised when her oldest brother Laurnce calls with an urgent request to meet at his club.

When she arrives, he tells her that a man going by the name Jason Smith claims to be her biological father and is willing to take a DNA test to prove it. Kate agrees to this and when the results are in, the tests prove conclusively that he is her sire. Kate wants to get to know her father, not realizing that she is in danger from a killer who needs to avenge a crime committed twenty-five years ago involving Jay even if it means using innocent dupes like her as a tool to insure success.

It is always a treat to read a Kate Fansler mystery and THE EDGE OF DOOM is no exception. Readers get to know the heroine in a way they never have before and they will feel closer to her as they are privy to her thought processes. Fans of Shakespeare and literary mysteries will definitely want to read Amanda Cross's latest work, a novel that humanizes her heroine

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Very disappointing
Review: For a 56 year old woman who finds out her father was not really her father, Kate is amazingly unchanged by the experience. This is the first book I have read in the series and I found Kate cold, arrogant and insufferable. Good writing but I won't pick up another Amananda Cross.

Rating:
Summary: Amanda Cross in poor form
Review: I hadn't read an Amanda Cross mystery in years, but I remember being fond of her feminist academic Kate Fansler, so I gave this one a try. I'm sad to say that this one is way off form. The plot is contrived in order to conform to a group of Shakespearean quotations - a conceit that has been far better by other writers - and although it is somewhat convoluted even I, who am generally not one to figure things out before the author explains, was able to see what was coming a mile away.

Further, I have to say that the character development was wooden, the mechanism of the plot was creaky, the dialog stilted. I did enjoy some of the academic overtones, but that probably isn't enough to give this one a recommendation.

Scott Morrison

Rating:
Summary: well written but disapponting
Review: I have read all of the previous Kate Fansler novels so looked forward to this one. Alas, the prose is stiff and formal while the plot barely moves from page to page.
The converstaion is so perfect, almost literary. Perhaps there are people who speak like this everyday but it does not make for exciting reading. I appreciate good writing and well edited books but this one comes across more like emotionless non-fiction.

Rating:
Summary: well written but disapponting
Review: I have read all of the previous Kate Fansler novels so looked forward to this one. Alas, the prose is stiff and formal while the plot barely moves from page to page.
The converstaion is so perfect, almost literary. Perhaps there are people who speak like this everyday but it does not make for exciting reading. I appreciate good writing and well edited books but this one comes across more like emotionless non-fiction.

Rating:
Summary: Brief Encounter Redux
Review: Kate Fansler was surprised to hear from her oldest brother, Laurence. Laurence told her she had a lot in common with Edith Wharton. Laurence said that Edith Wharton had had no children and had love affairs. Laurence was making a parallel between the gap in ages Edith Wharton and her brothers and Kate and her brothers and the question of paternity such a circumstance might suggest. Laurence claimed that Kate's real father had come to his office the other day. The man had suggested that the matter could be settled through DNA testing. The man did seem to be her father. His name was Jay Smith. There was a resemblance. he was an architect. Talk of DNA in police dramas, LAW AND ORDER, caused Smith to come forward he claimed.

It is wondered if discovering a relationship so late in life should make a difference. Kate's husband wants to investigate further. Jay supplied Reed with a resume. Jay had guessed why Reed wanted to see him. Kate's mother had been tolerant. She had permitted Kate to grow up and become the woman and have the career that suited her.

Next Jay Smith disappears. Jay may have used another man's career to prepare his resume. A note from Jay said to tell Reed it was not as bad as it looked. Later Kate heard from all three of her outraged brothers. To recover from the meeting with the brothers, Kate and Reed went to the Frick. They discovered that Jay had been in the Witness Protection Program.

As suddenly as he disappeared Jay reappeared. He said that someone was trying to kill him. Restoration work in New York City can get really nasty. Jay had become the accomplice of an art thief. In the 1970's art theft became a federal crime. Jay Smith's name was phoney, his real name was Dyson, and so he really did not fake his career on his resume, he was the other man, Dyson.

The book mentions a lecture on Shakespeare's comedies of forgiveness. Kate asked the lecturer that if a father sought a lost daughter was he unconsciously seeking redemption. Kate sought permission from Laurence to read her mother's notebooks. The information contained in the notebooks was not germane to the search.

Reed and Kate developed a plan to get Jay out of their apartment safely. Unfortunately Jay does get kidnapped. Kate discovered her Fansler father knew all along that his paternity was bogus. Jay had gotten stuck in a long ago passion, like a fly in amber. Then Jay was out of her life. His story and his motives for his conduct were mixed. Kate could say that nothing violent had happened.

The writing is bright, serviceable and the plotting adequate. The motivations of the characters are muddled, perhaps as they are in real life.

Rating:
Summary: Brief Encounter Redux
Review: Kate Fansler was surprised to hear from her oldest brother, Laurence. Laurence told her she had a lot in common with Edith Wharton. Laurence said that Edith Wharton had had no children and had love affairs. Laurence was making a parallel between the gap in ages Edith Wharton and her brothers and Kate and her brothers and the question of paternity such a circumstance might suggest. Laurence claimed that Kate's real father had come to his office the other day. The man had suggested that the matter could be settled through DNA testing. The man did seem to be her father. His name was Jay Smith. There was a resemblance. he was an architect. Talk of DNA in police dramas, LAW AND ORDER, caused Smith to come forward he claimed.

It is wondered if discovering a relationship so late in life should make a difference. Kate's husband wants to investigate further. Jay supplied Reed with a resume. Jay had guessed why Reed wanted to see him. Kate's mother had been tolerant. She had permitted Kate to grow up and become the woman and have the career that suited her.

Next Jay Smith disappears. Jay may have used another man's career to prepare his resume. A note from Jay said to tell Reed it was not as bad as it looked. Later Kate heard from all three of her outraged brothers. To recover from the meeting with the brothers, Kate and Reed went to the Frick. They discovered that Jay had been in the Witness Protection Program.

As suddenly as he disappeared Jay reappeared. He said that someone was trying to kill him. Restoration work in New York City can get really nasty. Jay had become the accomplice of an art thief. In the 1970's art theft became a federal crime. Jay Smith's name was phoney, his real name was Dyson, and so he really did not fake his career on his resume, he was the other man, Dyson.

The book mentions a lecture on Shakespeare's comedies of forgiveness. Kate asked the lecturer that if a father sought a lost daughter was he unconsciously seeking redemption. Kate sought permission from Laurence to read her mother's notebooks. The information contained in the notebooks was not germane to the search.

Reed and Kate developed a plan to get Jay out of their apartment safely. Unfortunately Jay does get kidnapped. Kate discovered her Fansler father knew all along that his paternity was bogus. Jay had gotten stuck in a long ago passion, like a fly in amber. Then Jay was out of her life. His story and his motives for his conduct were mixed. Kate could say that nothing violent had happened.

The writing is bright, serviceable and the plotting adequate. The motivations of the characters are muddled, perhaps as they are in real life.

Rating:
Summary: well written but emotionally flat
Review: Literature Professor Kate Fansler thinks that, at 50, she knows everything she needs to know about her family. When her brother calls and tells her that a man claims to be her father and can prove it by a DNA test, Kate's world is turned on its head. Jay Smith may be Kate's father, but he clearly holds several more secrets close to his heart. His background seems to have holes in it--and his stories are a little too convenient and self-serving for Kate's peace of mind.

Author Amanda Cross (Carolyn G. Heilbrun) writes with an approachable style that keeps the pages turning. I found myself, however, more and more unsympathetic toward Kate. Her attitude toward her family--disinterest and contempt, might be appropriate and justified, but this wasn't clear from the book. Kate's reaction toward her late life discovery that she might not be the person she always thought she was seems mediated by literature rather than honestly felt (okay, Kate is a Literature Professor so this is not totally out of line, but still, I never really felt the emotional impact of such an important event).

Rating:
Summary: Flat and affected
Review: My mother gave me this book because I love mysteries, I was an English major, and I live in Manhattan. She thought I would enjoy reading about a Manhattan mystery from a feminist perspective. However, given the utter lack of description of Manhattan or its characters, the book I read could have taken place in a dark box. I'm not sure why Cross even bothered describing a trip to the lovely Frick Museum, she certainly didn't transport me there or give me any sense of what the museum holds.

I also felt the notion that Cross doesn't describe ANYTHING as a tip of the hat to her protagonist Kate(who doesn't notice her surroundings) as a one-note tune at best. It made the novel boring, boring, boring. So boring in fact, that I couldn't finish the novel. And I'll reading finish almost anything.