Although the eleven Amanda Cross mysteries are not sequels to each other, Kate Fansler is the central character in each novel, and the books are further linked by similarities in setting, by style, and by the author's response to changes in American culture. After In the Last Analysis, the mysteries either take place on college or university campuses or directly involve people engaged in literary or academic activity. In the second novel, The James Joyce Murder, Kate and a graduate student are sorting the letters of a publisher who published some of the early works of James Joyce, and the chapter tides are the same as the titles of the stories in Joyce's collection Dubliners. In Poetic Justice (1970), the intrigue springs from an academic dispute about the value of adult education programs, and in The Theban Mysteries (1971), Kate solves a mystery at her former prep school...