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.
Rating:
Summary: Dreadful drivel
Review: This has to be one of the worst books I've ever read!. I can't believed I finished it. I set it aside many times and felt that it had to get better so I finally finished it. What a waste of time! It's dialogue was so stilted and unbelievable. The main character is so cold and restrained and she is suppose to be so intellectual. She supposedly didn't even know that the 'witness protection agency' was real; she thought it was a 'made for tv' concept. I think the author should stick to her day job. Although I shudder to think she might be teaching my daughter in her college years. And what was with her political agenda being pushed in one paragraph half way through the book? It had nothing to do with the story and just seemed to be so out of place. Do yourself a favor and pass on this one! There are so many better books out there.
Rating: 
Summary: Vintage Cross...a Literary Thriller to Savor
Review: Those of us who are fans of this bibliophile's dream of a series remember that amateur detective Kate Fansler played a more or less peripheral role in Amanda Cross' last novel, "Honest Doubt", which precipitated her new heroine, feisty PI Estelle 'Woody' Woodhaven, head first (and over her head without Kate's help) into murder in academia. Hopefully, we have not seen the last of Woody, but what a joy it is to have Kate take center stage again in "The Edge of Doom". As Kate well might put it about her Cross progenitor, "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety." With her usual panache, she has presented Kate with a fascinating and almost diabolical problem: a possible case of mistaken identity...her own. Kate, as the youngest Fansler child, has always felt herself something of a changeling in the family structure, alienated from their stuffy conventionalism by her own far more liberal attitudes, behaviors and beliefs. However, when her oldest brother Lawrence brings her the startling news that she may not legitimately be a Fansler at all; that one Jason E. Smith had appeared in his office out of the blue claiming that Kate was the result of a love affair that he had had with their mother well over fifty years ago, obviously Kate and her attorney husband Reed have to take some action, but what? Meet him? Ignore him? After DNA testing confirms Smith's claim, it opens a veritable Pandora's box of possibilities and questions. Who is Smith really? What does he want? Why has he suddenly chosen to appear in Kate's life? And, most importantly, why does he equally suddenly and mysteriously choose to disappear? Following much confusion worse confounded (and from her POV confounded confusion!)coupled with a hair-breath encounter with a killer, Kate is finally able to make sense out of a convoluted pattern of decades-old crimes and misdemeanors, lay her own ghosts happily to rest and eventually resolve matters in such a way that even the stuffy Fanslers can find at least tolerably acceptable. There is so much pleasure built-in to sharing Kate's world: characters who come insistently to life, precise plotting that moves briskly and intriguingly from event to event, and, above all, a literary style that has delighted me for over thirty years. Amanda Cross paints verbal pictures that linger in my mind, and she reminds me with every paragraph that conversation is indeed an art and not a lost one so long as she, Kate and Reed are around to keep it flowing. "The Edge of Doom" is a warm and witty novel to be savored...I certainly did.
Rating: 
Summary: Previous books better, still enjoyable
Review: When I came across the Kate Fansler mystery series a decade or so ago, I fell in love with them. The heroine was-still is-as dry as a martini, sophisticated, intelligent,aristocratic and independent. In many ways, she is a version of Katherine Hepburn.
However, in the past few years, the series has faltered. In part, I believe this is because Cross has kept her heroine contemporary (based on the original books she should be in her 70's or 80's but she is still in her 50s).
The Edge of Doom is an enjoyable, if not the most enjoyable, addition to the series. Fansler finds out that she has a long lost father who has a shady past and present. Part of the book's mystery lies in unlocking that past and present-and dodging all sorts of evildoers out to get her-and part of the mystery lies in her unlocking her own family's past. As always, Cross's depiction of sophisticated Manhattan life adds plenty of favor to the book.
I would recommend this book to die hard Amanda Cross junkies and to individuals who like books with dry and wry heroines. (Though if you've never read Cross, start with the earlier ones.) I wouldn't recommend this book to individuals who have been lukewarm on Cross in the past (this book won't change your mind) or who need action packed, adventure filled mysteries.
| 
