By the time we learn who murdered Jane Britton in 1969, it almost doesn’t matter. Becky Cooper’s meticulously researched tale of obsession and power, misogyny and institutional obstruction, gender and sex moves back and forth in time, weaving together her present day investigation, the 1969 investigation, and all points in between seamlessly. At times she takes on us down paths exploring possible suspects that would feel like tangents except that all of this serves to knit together a portrait of academia and Jane’s world so that by the final reveal, it’s less important to know who ended her life than it is to understand what it was to live it. A powerful, remarkable book.