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sandin954's review
3.0
Professor and amateur detective Kate Fansler is approached by a publishing company to write the biography of the wife of a famous modernist author. This was not really a mystery but a look at literary criticism, family, and female bonds with a bit of intrigue thrown in. I thought it was well written and interesting but can see why there are such differing opinions here.
maya_b's review
3.0
I went into this story expecting a mystery, and found some kind of fictional biography instead. That I surprisingly really liked. I usually am not a the biggest fan of biographies, since I always feel like they are boring, but the way this book was written I was actually pretty okay with it. It was easy and fast to read most of the time and I did like it. The mystery comes up way too late for it to be an actual mystery, so I would say calling it a mystery is false advertisement, but as a non-mystery I did like it.
alesia_charles's review
5.0
Like some other readers, I spent much of this novel wondering where the mystery was - the mystery aspect only turned up in the last chapter - while nonetheless absorbed in the story of Kate's quest for knowledge about the long-deceased wife of an even more long-deceased famous writer.
Or, alternatively, one could consider the whole thing as a kind of meditation on several deep mysteries: youth and aging, the roles of women, change over time, the value of literature, the problems of fame.
I looked it up: Cross's first Kate Fansler mystery was published in 1964; this one, in 1990. The author herself was 64 in 1990, roughly the age of the three women at the novel's heart. In 1964, she was 38 - in fact, she was born in 1926 and would have been 16 in 1942.
And friends, unless you've lived through a similar time period or have read a lot about it, you have no fucking idea how much things have changed since 1942 or even 1964. Or since 1990, for that matter. That's what the novel is about; the mystery thing was just an excuse. Read it and learn.
Or, alternatively, one could consider the whole thing as a kind of meditation on several deep mysteries: youth and aging, the roles of women, change over time, the value of literature, the problems of fame.
I looked it up: Cross's first Kate Fansler mystery was published in 1964; this one, in 1990. The author herself was 64 in 1990, roughly the age of the three women at the novel's heart. In 1964, she was 38 - in fact, she was born in 1926 and would have been 16 in 1942.
And friends, unless you've lived through a similar time period or have read a lot about it, you have no fucking idea how much things have changed since 1942 or even 1964. Or since 1990, for that matter. That's what the novel is about; the mystery thing was just an excuse. Read it and learn.
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