Everything you need to understand or teach Compromising Positions by Susan Isaacs.
Judith Singer, the protagonist, is a I delightfully modern Pandora, motivated by insatiable curiosity in the face of strong deterrents but, unlike her literary forerunner, she is willing to endanger her comfortable world in order to learn about herself, and not just to discover a secret. Armed with the gift of repartee and the ability to analyze data and people, she probes the secrets of her community with flair and humor, testing her discoveries against her own notions of life and love. She is a three-dimensional, unique heroine of modern fiction, whose superficial similarities with other protagonists of women's novels ultimately disappear through her highly personal and witty observations.
One reviewer termed the heroine "the alienated housewife's fantasy of action." Clearly, Judith Singer is a breakthrough as modern feminist-cum-detective heroine.
Since this novel is at once a detective story, a light comedy of manners and a Bildungsroman or...