The Players Come Again, again

     Amanda Cross. The Players Come Again (1990) A reread, and just as good as the first time. Better, because I knew the solution, so the path to it was more interesting. Cross makes a case that the Minoans were an egalitarian culture, uninfected by the brutal masculinity of the Greeks, who retold the Minotaur myth to conform to their pro-patriarchal prejudices and misogyny. This has a tangential connection to the case. As always, the conversation is adult and literate. The puzzle circles round the question of who wrote Emanuel Foxx’s great modernist novel Ariadne, he himself, or his wife Gabrielle. A pleasure to read. Cross’s men aren’t very convincing, though. **½