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tessyoung's review against another edition
3.0
I read one of the instalments in this series some years ago and remember looking out for others but to no avail. Fast forward to the charity shelf in the local supermarket when visiting my Mum and I was reminded of the series by finding the second book in the series. I snapped it up and then decided to start at the beginning with the kindle version of this, the series opener, on my phone app. A quick diverting read, I enjoyed this one too and am looking forward to working my way through these. I like the literary allusions and the protagonist Kate Fansler. I really enjoyed the literary references and their role in the plot lines so look forward to more of this, on the other hand the references to psychoanalysis were a little clunky but not annoyingly so. The class politics were annoying however. While Kate would be unlikely to have the education, contacts and luxury of engaging in amateur sleuthing and employing her soon to be nephew-in-law to help out, if she had not been well off, some of the attitudes towards the of lower social class are somewhat offensive to this reader.
mschrock8's review against another edition
3.0
Filling in another series. I like that Kate (one of my favorite names) is a college English professor.
mckeanja's review against another edition
informative
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
bunnieslikediamonds's review against another edition
3.0
This 1964 mystery hinges on unlikely coincidences and a terribly far-fetched plot, and I very much doubt people talked like that even in the 60s, but it's quite amusing. The protagonist, a young literary professor, is charmingly elitist and simply must solve the murder of a former student, since the police sadly lack the necessary Freudian skills. I'll try the next one in the series and hope for a more solid plot.
judyward's review against another edition
3.0
A mystery starring an English professor? My college professor heart sings.
ashleylm's review against another edition
2.0
Thank you Goodreads! Sometimes I'll be reading a book and thinking to myself "this isn't very good. Is it just me? Will it get better? What does Goodreads think?" and in this case, as of this morning, Goodreads thought 3.56. And given that most Goodreads reviews skew very positive (at least from my perspective), 3.56 is actually a rather lowish number.
So I feel emboldened to stop reading. I don't care about any of the characters—I'm well into it and for instance I still know nothing about the victim other than she's beautiful and a student and wanted a psychoanalyst, while the characters I do know something about are dull and/or unpleasant.
Our supposed detective is particularly annoying, combining the smug self-satisfaction of Patricia Cornwell's awful Kay Scarpetta, with the assertive pushiness of Murder She Wrote's Jessica Fletcher (who's adorable, but only because of Angela Lansbury ... if Kay Scarpetta were that pushy, she'd be even worse). She swoops into the scene of the crime (no one's ordered to leave, despite it being a crime scene, just because it's their home/office) and begins badgering her friends to tell their story in great detail.
Lots of things ring false to my ears, for instance after being told he had two hours free (two clients cancelled back-to-back) the analyst asserts he went for a jog. We're told that it's highly unlikely anyone would believe this. Really? What's he supposed to do, twiddle his thumbs for half an hour, then pace for forty-five minutes, then go back to twiddling? Why is "I shall go for a run, given my unexpected free time?" such an unlikely thing to do? If he were described as incredibly obese, and suggested he was going for a run for the first-time ever, then sure, it's a bit surprising, but he's just a normal guy who runs often and has running clothes.
So now we have unpleasant characters, and an author who's not too sure what's unlikely or not. Oh, and then she had the wife casually state something like "no doubt the killer waited until the last minute to cancel those appointments, or I might have have cancelled my own errand and we could have stayed in together making love in the morning," without any of the other characters present wincing and looking a bit embarrassed. Maybe that's on me (if Coco Chanel announced "I love making love in the morning," I'd take it in stride, but it just didn't seem natural as pleasant conversation among friends).
Oh, and of course there's the usual feeling of "this is NOT how people would behave when someone's been gruesomely murdered in the next room," but that permeates so many mysteries, I had to let go of that nit long, long ago.
Anyway, I'm stopping. I still have Peter Robinsons to read (the last one wasn't great, but usually I like them), and Joyce Porters (from the past), and I've yet to finish the Murder Most Unladylike series, and I'm re-reading Sayers and Christie—so good to know I'm not going to regret not trying the Kate Fansler Mysteries.
(5* = amazing, terrific book, one of my all-time favourites, 4* = very good book, 3* = good book, but nothing to particularly rave about, 2* = disappointing book, and 1* = awful, just awful. As a statistician I know most books are 3s, but I am biased in my selection and end up mostly with 4s, thank goodness.)
So I feel emboldened to stop reading. I don't care about any of the characters—I'm well into it and for instance I still know nothing about the victim other than she's beautiful and a student and wanted a psychoanalyst, while the characters I do know something about are dull and/or unpleasant.
Our supposed detective is particularly annoying, combining the smug self-satisfaction of Patricia Cornwell's awful Kay Scarpetta, with the assertive pushiness of Murder She Wrote's Jessica Fletcher (who's adorable, but only because of Angela Lansbury ... if Kay Scarpetta were that pushy, she'd be even worse). She swoops into the scene of the crime (no one's ordered to leave, despite it being a crime scene, just because it's their home/office) and begins badgering her friends to tell their story in great detail.
Lots of things ring false to my ears, for instance after being told he had two hours free (two clients cancelled back-to-back) the analyst asserts he went for a jog. We're told that it's highly unlikely anyone would believe this. Really? What's he supposed to do, twiddle his thumbs for half an hour, then pace for forty-five minutes, then go back to twiddling? Why is "I shall go for a run, given my unexpected free time?" such an unlikely thing to do? If he were described as incredibly obese, and suggested he was going for a run for the first-time ever, then sure, it's a bit surprising, but he's just a normal guy who runs often and has running clothes.
So now we have unpleasant characters, and an author who's not too sure what's unlikely or not. Oh, and then she had the wife casually state something like "no doubt the killer waited until the last minute to cancel those appointments, or I might have have cancelled my own errand and we could have stayed in together making love in the morning," without any of the other characters present wincing and looking a bit embarrassed. Maybe that's on me (if Coco Chanel announced "I love making love in the morning," I'd take it in stride, but it just didn't seem natural as pleasant conversation among friends).
Oh, and of course there's the usual feeling of "this is NOT how people would behave when someone's been gruesomely murdered in the next room," but that permeates so many mysteries, I had to let go of that nit long, long ago.
Anyway, I'm stopping. I still have Peter Robinsons to read (the last one wasn't great, but usually I like them), and Joyce Porters (from the past), and I've yet to finish the Murder Most Unladylike series, and I'm re-reading Sayers and Christie—so good to know I'm not going to regret not trying the Kate Fansler Mysteries.
(5* = amazing, terrific book, one of my all-time favourites, 4* = very good book, 3* = good book, but nothing to particularly rave about, 2* = disappointing book, and 1* = awful, just awful. As a statistician I know most books are 3s, but I am biased in my selection and end up mostly with 4s, thank goodness.)
lmm6758's review against another edition
1.0
I didn't like this at all. Maybe it's just a bit dated, but she was so annoyingly elitist. I wanted to stab her on the couch.
beerenbuecher's review against another edition
5.0
Cross novels are a linguistic pleasure, they are full of language games, semantic and linguistic subtleties and wonderful images. She often tells the story succinctly but to the point and manages to present even the most convoluted entanglements in a linguistically vivid, logical and not far-fetched way.
Through the psychotherapeutic environment, she underpins the case and the characters with psychological theories and much Freud - both criticism and praise. Through this knowledge, she also creates a vivid and tangible three-dimensionality of the characters.
Literarily, she combs through all the world's literature - from Flaubert and Proust to Virgil and, of course, D.H. Lawrence, and offers so a special treat for every literature lover.
Through the psychotherapeutic environment, she underpins the case and the characters with psychological theories and much Freud - both criticism and praise. Through this knowledge, she also creates a vivid and tangible three-dimensionality of the characters.
Literarily, she combs through all the world's literature - from Flaubert and Proust to Virgil and, of course, D.H. Lawrence, and offers so a special treat for every literature lover.
writerlibrarian's review against another edition
3.0
This is the opening novel with Kate Fansler as the intellectual academic reluctant detective. We find all the ingredients in the first book that made the series interesting and different: intellectual puzzles, the mystery set in a somewhat ivory tower space, here, a psychoanalyst's office and home. You get literary discussions and mentions (Lord Peter *smile*), psychoanalytic debates about Freud, etc. The plot is fairly simple : why would a former student of Kate end up stabbed on the couch of the psychoanalyst Kate recommended to her? Did the analyst do it? I had less than 50 pages left to read and I still had no idea of who and why and didn't mind. Yes, the ending is somewhat far fetched but has a certain flair in the way it's delivered and constructed. I liked it.