Amanda Cross's Death in a Tenured Position features her recurring amateur detective and professor of English, Kate Fansler. She is witty, attractive, well-bred, and independent though married. These qualities make for excellent verbal fencing with the lesbians who need her help to remove suspicion from them…. Cross pokes a good deal of pointed fun at a crusty institution, and a little at feminist extremism. When she is not tied down by exposition, her prose is abundantly witty, but several times I found myself wishing that someone would just walk in, order a sandwich, eat it, pay for it, and leave. Still, she writes well, and though I found the solution disappointing, I thought the solving, which depends on psychological insight and sly literary clues, top-notch. (p. 74)

Jeffrey Burke, "Mysteries for the Misbegotten," in Harper's (copyright © 1981 by Harper's Magazine; all rights reserved; reprinted from the July, 1981 issue by special...