Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Search - The James Joyce Murder (Kate Fansler, Bk 2)

The James Joyce Murder (Kate Fansler, Bk 2)
The James Joyce Murder - Kate Fansler, Bk 2
Author: Amanda Cross
What could be more idyllic than a summer in the Berkshires, sorting through James Joyce's letters to his publisher? What could be more peaceful than long walks in the woods with friends old and new? — Well, just about anything. Kate Fansler finds that literary ability and love of nature are far less vital than supersleuthing skill when her next-d...  more »
Info icon
ISBN-13: 9780345302144
ISBN-10: 0345302141
Publication Date: 6/12/1982
Pages: 176
Rating:
  • Currently 3.9/5 Stars.
 8

3.9 stars, based on 8 ratings
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Type: Paperback
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Top Member Book Reviews

reviewed The James Joyce Murder (Kate Fansler, Bk 2) on + 68 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
good mystery. I guessed who did it, then decided someone else did it, and was surprised by how they proved who did it and why. Can't ask for more than that.
Read All 4 Book Reviews of "The James Joyce Murder Kate Fansler Bk 2"

Please Log in to Rate these Book Reviews

reviewed The James Joyce Murder (Kate Fansler, Bk 2) on + 9 more book reviews
All Amanda Cross books are da bomb!
annalovesbooks avatar reviewed The James Joyce Murder (Kate Fansler, Bk 2) on
ISBN 0345346866 - As a mystery fan, I opened this one happily. I was far happier to close it. Most of the book is written in a very pretentious way - paragraphs such as "She's gone, though not without collecting a bottle of vinegar, expressing inchoate horror at the use of wine vinegar at twice the price of ordinary, asking if she could borrow the house for her garden club's tea, informing me she was busier than anyone else on earth, and wondering, with barely concealed salaciousness, what were the functions of the two young men in this household. I have become very disillusioned about the rural character. I suspect that Wordsworth, when he took to the country, never spoke to anyone but Dorothy and Coleridge, and perhaps an occasional leech gatherer." actually pour from the mouths of Cross' characters. Almost non-stop. It's an affectation, I assume, because there are points in the book when people converse in simpler language.

Kate Fansler went to school with Veronica Lingerwell, daughter of the now-deceased Sam Lingerwell, publisher. Sam's estate is left to Veronica, who is now a nun. The estate includes a large number of Sam's letters and among them are letters from James Joyce, whose work Sam published. The letters are of great interest to many and Kate, as an English professor, is asked to help sort them and decide their fate. She hires a grad student to help, almost accidentally acquires her nephew Leo and hires another grad student to help with him and takes the lot of them off to Lingerwell's country home to get some work done.

Mary Bradford, their neighbor, makes herself generally obnoxious; it's hard to find anyone in the area - local or visitor - who DIDN'T dislike her. When she's shot, it's equally hard to find someone who wouldn't, at some point, liked to have shot her. The members of the household rally around William, Leo's tutor, to help find the real murderer before the police can cart William off to prison.

Since this is one in a series of books, I'll likely read others and I really hope that Cross gets the stick out of her...spine. The characters aren't particularly sympathetic, since almost all of them speak the same way - like pretentious snobs that I would most definitely NOT like to know. If you're a fan, read it for the through-story of Kate. If you're new to Cross, you might want to start elsewhere, because this one is a let-down.

- AnnaLovesBooks

Book Wiki

Series
Kate Fansler  2 of 14

Genres: