The major social issue In the Last Analysis (1964) is professional ethics, in particular the integrity of the medical profession — including psychiatry — and the confidentiality of the doctor-patient relationship. Kate and her friend Reed Amhearst, who works in the District Attorney's office, sleuth throughout numerous Cross mysteries.

Reed is, in In the Last Analysis, an Assistant District Attorney, though in later novels he becomes a professor in a law school and ultimately an international consultant on police ethics. A bachelor in this first novel, Reed is as urbane as Kate. His role in this mystery is as Kate's legal assistant, providing information and consulting a variety of experts on matters affecting the investigation. Kate solves the mystery here, with Reed's valuable help; in some of the later novels, such as The James Joyce Murder (1967) and Poetic Justice (1970), Reed actually solves the puzzle, but the initial...