Female Academic Detectives
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room where she saw the man the night before. Because she is pressed for time (she
has to take her mother to the hospital in London the next day), she doesn’t report to
the police. But she does fell guilty later — so she conducts her own extensive
investigation into the victim’s identity, with the help of literary and academic clues:
as it turns out, he was a well-known deconstructionist. Later, she and a friend
illegally enter his apartment to find clues about his shady relationships with stu
dents. (Interestingly, Loretta herself begins a relationship with a student — and
doesn’t feel guilty or unprofessional about it!)
Claire Camden’s academic and detective research overlap in interesting, often
coincidental ways: her more individualistic, career-related pursuits also have a
real world/altruistic function, giving her clues to the mystery at hand. A combina
tion of self-interest, self-protection, feminist beliefs, as well as family interest (the
safety of her daughter is at risk in Death Too Soon), usually account for Claire’s
involvement in detective work.
Probably the most independent and individualistic academic sleuth is of course
Kate Fansler, well-known over decades of Amanda Cross novels. Kate’s personal
idiosyncrasies are well-known: her dry, classy, perhaps sometimes snobby wit, her
dislike of Sundays and preference for Tuesdays, her pre-dinner martinis and intel
lectual exchanges with her husband Reed, who respects her unpredictability and
doesn’t expect her to follow his advice. Then there is her selectivity in the cases
she takes on, and her combination of non-matemal aloofness and yet amazing
intuition, especially for women she meets during her investigations. As a childfree,
successful professor with tenure, a professional reputation, and independent wealth,
she can take occasional leaves of absence for long-term detective work. Publish
ers, relatives of writers, or colleges often ask for her help, and she has to put up
with little if any interference in her investigations. Except for sharing occasional
ideas with Reed and the people involved in her cases, she works largely on her
own, and it is her unique, experienced, analytical but also intuitive “close reading”
talent, of people, texts, and events, that allow her to solve mysteries. While her
methods are mostly individualistic and independent, her motives are, even if some
times self-serving, almost always related to causes she believes in. And sometimes
she reminds herself of causes larger than herself, as in The Players Come Again,
when she finds out that she will be expected to edit the writings, rather than write
the biography of a modernist writer’s wife. When one relative tells her, “you won’t
be missing out too much by not doing the biography”, Kate thinks, “just the whole
basis on which I’ve planned my life for the next five years or so.” But then she
remembers: “But did that really matter? Damn it, Gabrielle mattered. She remained
this enigma in the center of this great phenomenon of modernism. Surely she had
a right to be heard” (145).
The one academic detective who combines individualism and community com-