The two consistent characters in the Amanda Cross mysteries are Kate Fansler and Reed Amhearst, who are first friends, then lovers, and, by the end of the third novel, PoeticJustice (1970), married. Kate is an extremely independent woman who has been trained in old-fashioned grace and manners, yet who drinks martinis and has a series of lovers, albeit discreetly. She is the youngest child and only daughter of a wealthy family, who has rejected her older brothers' Wall Street values to pursue an academic career, though a family inheritance supplements her faculty salary. Like her creator, Carolyn Heilbrun, Kate lives and teaches in New York City; unlike Heilbrun, she is determinedly childless, and does not marry Reed until she is nearly forty. As befits an English professor, Kate is well-spoken and witty, and her conversation is peppered with literary references and quotations. She is extremely loyal to both friends...