The Question of Max

Kate's colleague and friend Max manages to find her in her Berkshire hideaway. He convinces her to go with him to Maine to check out the literary files of a recently deceased author. Apparently, burglars have been seen in the area and Max is worried about the valuable papers. While there Kate finds the body of one of her students on the rocks.This is a really good Cross novel. There are two main interwoven plots with a few sidelines. The mystery is difficult to solve and keeps your interest all the way through.

This is a slow-paced, detail-heavy mystery novel that will please people who really love and know literature. Loaded with imagery and references from the classic 19th and 20th century canon, it might be difficult to truly enjoy or appreciate by someone who does not. The novel is written in very intellectual and academic prose (lots of big vocabulary words -- after all the heroine is an English professor), but is nevertheless appropriate and entertaining, not too dry. The mystery unfolds extremely slowly -- in fact, until the second half of the book you are not really sure what the mystery IS -- but there is something tantalizing about this, and it makes the book feel as much like a "regular" novel as a mystery (so even someone who does not usually read mysteries might very well enjoy it). The last quarter of the book speeds up dramatically, with lots of unanswered questions, new clues, and even a bit of old-fashioned suspense; the ending is simple but somehow seems to fit just right. I did enjoy this book, and it was a quick and pleasant read, but I can warn you in advance that if you do not like literature, or reading very intellectual novels, you will probably find it boring. If the story of an upper-class English professor trying to solve a mystery surrounding a recently deceased British writer appeals to you, however, then pick this one up and give it a go. It's not an amazing book and it won't blow you away, but it's not expensive, and it's certainly good reading for a rainy day or a long trip.

"A bit of homicide, much wit, and lashings." Scholars, famous writers, literary circles. A taste of Walt Whitman, Wilde, Eliot, Oxford. Dissertations, literary executors, biographical writings.