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Book Review of In the Last Analysis (Kate Fansler, Bk 1)

In the Last Analysis (Kate Fansler, Bk 1)
reviewed on + 11 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1


If you enjoy intelligent, literate, witty mysteries with an academic twist then you will enjoy this series. There's little action but lots of talk. Kate Fansler is, at this stage in the series, a single professor of English Literature at a prestigious university in NYC with a penchant for becoming involved in murder investigations. She has an interesting Assistant District Attorney friend, Reed, who provides her with access to case material and the status of the investigation. The series reminds me somewhat of what Lord Peter Whimsey and Harriet Vane might have become if they had lived in a later era. This novel was written in 1964, so some of it is a bit dated, but the characters remain compelling and the mystery, if not of the thrills and chills variety, provides the usual unexpected twist. It is, in many way, a cozy, and is a rather gentle, tame story, as murders go, but the wit and intelligence with which this story is imbued make it all worthwhile.