Originally published in 1991, Reflecting on Miss Marple looks at the incongruous combination of violence, murder and a sweet, white-haired old lady, and examines why this makes such a potent but unlikely formula. The book is an astute and engaging account which reveals Miss Marple as a feminist heroine, triumphantly able to exploit contemporary prejudices against unmarried women in order to solve her case. The authors explore the inherent contradictions of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple novels, their social context, and their place in detective fiction as a whole.

Originally published in 1991, Reflecting on Miss Marple looks at the incongruous combination of violence, murder and a sweet, white-haired old lady, and examines why this makes such a potent but unlikely formula. The book is an astute and engaging account which reveals Miss Marple as a feminist heroine, triumphantly able to exploit contemporary prejudices against unmarried women in order to solve her case. The authors explore the inherent contradictions of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple novels, their social context, and their place in detective fiction as a whole.

When the Parson declares rather carelessly 'Anyone who murdered Colonel Prothero would be doing the world at large a service !', he does not realise his words will come back to haunt him. From several potential murderers, Miss Marple must find the real killer

Sleuthing Miss Marple mirrors the structure and playful analytic style of a detective novel. Beginning at the ‘scene of the crime’, this investigation places Agatha Christie and the clue-puzzle in historical context, casting light on the methods, the motives, and, in a sense, the alibis that underpin Christie’s crime fiction. In keeping with the clue-puzzle analytical method devised for this book, each chapter builds towards a conclusion that delivers a surprising intellectual payoff. This enquiry is unapologetically textual in approach. It constructs a rigorous evidence base drawn from the Marple short stories and novels, and presents a useful interpretation of crime fiction scholarship. This provides a foundation for original literary analyses that reveal Christie’s engagements with gender roles and genre rules, and the sleights of hand that they conceal. Christie’s modus operandi is uncovered, as are the narrative strategies and literary devices that she deployed to ambush unwary readers. Crucially, this investigation shows how Christie’s ingenious methods made it possible for an elderly spinster to get away with solving murder. Sleuthing Miss Marple will be invaluable for students and researchers of crime fiction, twentieth-century literature, and creative writing.

Deborah Lee Luskin's critically acclaimed love story, Into the Wilderness, follows Rose Mayer after she has just buried her second husband and wonders what she's going to do with the rest of her life. The year is 1964, and Rose is no longer a young woman. Reluctantly, she visits her son at his summer place in Vermont, where there are neither sidewalks, Democrats nor other Jews. There is, however, the Marlboro Music Festival. It's there that she meets Percy Mendell, a born and bred Vermonter who has never married, never voted for a Democrat, and never left the state.Both Rose and Percy confront habits of a lifetime, habits that interfere with their undeniable attraction to one another. Rose confronts her religious ignorance and spiritual beliefs, while Percy is forced to question his life-long political faith. All this takes place in the small Vermont town of Orton, (pop. 290). Into the Wilderness is a tale of the outsider infiltrating a new community and how all parties negotiate their differences. It's also a tale of rural Vermont at mid-century, a time when the major technological advance was the Interstate highway, a road-building project that changed rural America as much as the information highway is changing the world today.Readers routinely say, "I didn't want it to end but I couldn't put it down." Into The Wilderness has been hailed as "a fiercely intelligent love story" and "a perfectly gratifying read.""Into the Wilderness is a poignant description of a specific placebut it is also a timeless story of human fulfillment," says Frank Bryan of UVM. "Luskin's heroine Rose Mayer is an honest to God miracle. Rarely has a fictional creation come to seem so perfectly real to me, and never have I cheered out loud as a character in a novel worked her way through the last stages of grief," adds author Philip Baruth.Deborah Lee Luskin often writes about Vermont, where she has lived since 1984. She is a commentator for Vermont Public Radio, a free-lance journalist, and a Visiting Scholar for the Vermont Humanities. Into The Wilderness is her first published novel.

Soon after Gwenda moved into her new home, odd things started to happen. Despite her best efforts to modernize the house, she only succeeded in dredging up its past. Worse, she felt an irrational sense of terror every time she climbed the stairs. In fear, Gwenda turned to Miss Marple to exorcise her ghosts. Between them, they were to solve a “perfect” crime committed many years before.

The rage for crime fiction today mysteriously includes a wide and enduring attraction to the few remaining wholly admirable role models still available to readers. The iconic Miss Marple, ‘faved’ by traditionalists and pop fans alike, deftly models her love of God and neighbor in concrete terms—and stands boldly for Truth and Good. This beloved, enigmatic, mild-mannered spinster champions the triumph of order over chaos in society, through her process of detection in which the solution rests in provable fact. ,

At Bertram’s Hotel the intrepid Miss Marple, on holiday in London, must solve a deadly mystery at the end of a chain of very violent events. An old-fashioned London hotel is not quite as reputable as it makes out to be.… When Miss Marple comes up from the country for a holiday in London, she finds what she’s looking for at Bertram’s Hotel: traditional decor, impeccable service, and an unmistakable atmosphere of danger behind the highly-polished veneer. Yet, not even Miss Marple can foresee the violent chain of events set in motion when an eccentric guest makes his way to the airport on the wrong day.…

Women's Lives/Women's Times reflects the growing interest in life-writing as a basis for both feminist theorizing and women-centered education. It discusses the many ways in which the study of autobiography can contribute to the theory, practice, and politics of women's studies as curriculum, and to feminist theory more generally. This volume is concerned with the application of theory to text--particularly with the assumptions and discourses of postmodernism--but also in exploring how general theories of the subject do not always fit comfortably with the specifics of autobiographical writing. It also recognizes the challenge women's autobiography offers to theory, taking us, in its complex weave of the personal, the political, and the theoretical, beyond the usual generic and disciplinary boundaries.

This collection of essays emerged out of the Agender conference, and various queer cultural activities associated with the PoMoGaze project (Leeds Art Gallery, 2013–2015). PoMoGaze was a term created to promote queer co-curatorial projects held at the gallery as part of Community Engagement activities, and references ‘PoMo’ as a shortening of ‘Postmodern’ combined with ‘Gaze’ as a play on words linking the act of looking with LGBT*IQ activities. The book presents many voices exploring themes of female and trans* masculinities, gender equality, and the lives, work and activism of LGBT*IQ artists and thinkers. It includes discussion of arts-making, cultural materials, diverse identities, contemporary queer politics, and social histories, and travels across time telling gender-crossing stories of creative resistance. Readers with an interest in the performing and visual arts, literature, philosophy, and queer and gendered cultural readings with an intersectional emphasis, will be stimulated by this eclectic and thought-provoking collection.