Scared Stiff: A Mattie Winston Mystery / by Annelise Ryan

Most people expect a little faux horror during Halloween. But blending all the fake blood and skeletons with an actual corpse is a little too macabre for the folks of Sorensen, Wisconsin who are shocked after some trick-or-treaters happen upon the dead body of a young woman--murdered. Shannon Tolliver, a waitress and part-time model, is the unlucky victim having been shot in the chest with a .38 caliber handgun leading the county's homicide unit to tab her estranged husband Erik as suspect numero uno. But Sorensen's deputy coroner Mattie Winston isn't so sure. Having known the couple personally, Mattie knows that Erik loved his wife despite their recent marital problems--recent arguments (some of them public) leading to a separation and Shannon starting with a new boyfriend--and could never be driven to such a violent act even if he does, coincidentally, own a licensed .38 caliber handgun.
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The task of helping clear Erik won't be easy. For Mattie to help out with the case, she'll have to tax the utmost of her admirable forensic pathology skills and limited ballistics experience to even have a chance at getting Erik's name off the prime suspect list. And she'll have to do some snooping around on her own to come up with some clues on who the real culprit might be. Clearing one man and bringing another to justice seems a task, but it's a little less daunting knowing that she gets to work in close proximity with hunky homicide detective Steve Hurley, the very man she'll have to convince that he's wrong. Hurley, the man who originally took Erik into custody, is not only dashingly handsome, he's a good detective and Mattie now has it doubly hard as she finds herself falling for him at the same time she's trying to outwit him.
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Ryan has a knack for pairing humor and crime. An RN herself, she's familiar with more than just writing and goes toe-to-toe with more hardcore forensic/police procedural authors, not shy about getting her heroine Mattie Winston's hands dirty when it comes to uncovering evidence and catching the villain. Many hard-boiled crime novels and police procedurals tend to have an edge of menace about them: the world is a no-nonsense place where violent crime and frivolous elements (à la romantic comedy) just don't mix well. But the author doesn't seem to have a problem characterizing her funny, likeable protagonist who can have a laugh at herself (some have compared Mattie Winston to Stephanie Plum) and not hesitate to wade wrist-deep into the blood and guts--literally, she's a coroner--of the crime. This is Ryan's third book in the series. (MYS RYAN)

Daniel Deronda / by George Eliot

Born to unknown parentage, Daniel Deronda has been raised by respected gentleman Sir Hugo Mallinger since infancy. Now a grown man, Dan's a well-educated, well-traveled and well-groomed proper Victorian gentleman. Yet not all's quite right; intuition tells him he needs to re-examine his life from a root perspective, to pursue a more philosophical mode of existence. And so, after a series of circumstances in which he rescues a young woman, a Jewess, from the river, Deronda begins a twisting, soul-searching journey, one leading him down an unforeseen path of enlightenment and self-revelation.

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Meanwhile not far away, Gwendolen Harleth is a beautiful, adventurous young girl from a middle class family. Well-versed and privy to the fact that she's a desirous prospect among men, Gwendolen has the role of the minxish coquette down pat and though discrete to the proper degree, sees no reason she shouldn't enjoy her life to the fullest. But when her father dies, leaving her mother widowed with limited assets, the family is forced to move in with relatives, a situation obliging Gwendolen to "marry up", thus providing financial leverage for herself and her family. Wealthy neighborhood bachelor Henleigh Grancourt seems a timely match for Gwendolen. The nephew of Sir Hugo Mallinger and heir to a vast fortune, he's well-regarded and can provide the type of life Gwendolen feels she deserves. But things change quickly as, after the wedding, Gwendolen finds Grancourt to be a cruel, emotionally abusive man who's already fathered several children with a previous mistress, a woman he'd previously promised to marry. Now trapped in a fate she never could have anticipated, Gwendolen foresees a bleak, foreboding future as her life becomes one of relentless, daily misery.

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Eliot's final completed novel, published just before her death in 1880, was also her only book set in contemporary Victorian society; her others usually dated back a generation or two previous. As well as rendering themes associated with ethical soul searching, the perils of marriage and conflicting intellectual paradigms, the story is notable as an early reference to Jewish mysticism, namely its associations with Kabbalah and proto-Zionism. Deronda's introspective quest for personal truth contrasts well to Gwendolen's egotistical, self-seeking nature and the pair's ironical relationship and correlating problems elicit a clever nuance. This complementary dichotomy of characters was a signature literary device Eliot had used previously in Middlemarch and Adam Bede and an arrangement which Tolstoy and others would similarly incorporate into their own work. (FIC ELIOT)

The Browning Version (DVD) 1951 / w/ Michael Redgrave and Nigel Patrick

A teacher of the Classics all his life, Andrew Crocker-Harris has epitomized the stuffy, hard-edged instructor unpopular with students and faculty. His dismal reputation is well-evidenced through wordless displeasure and mocking epithets ("Himmler of the lower fifth"), as only the pitying interest of a few provide an ear for his once-revered intellectual aptitude. Now on his last day before a pension-less "retirement", he tries to reconcile his mediocre achievements to the teaching ethics he's always maintained. Outside the classroom his personal life is a colossal degradation. In a brutal show of repulsion, his much-younger wife Millie openly flaunts her extramarital affair with a fellow teacher; exploiting every opportunity to obliterate Andrew's already tortured soul. With only his farewell speech remaining, Andrew's life and legacy are now held in the balance of his own convictions.

The title 'Browning Version' is in reference to poet Robert Browning's translation of "Agamemnon", a Greek tragedy detailing the emotional whiplash of one man's death at the hands of his wife and her lover. Originally a play itself, 'Browning Version' is a 'dead-on' depiction of death experienced not physically, but through an emotional deterioration of the soul. Andrew's circumstances aren't just 'Everyman'; they're an abasement so severe that he's at the mercy of children for any emotional sustenance.

In a way, 'Browning Version' is sort-of like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? or Dead Poets Society with its marital discord and academic backdrop. The three or four primary characters exist within a strained consciousness, even in the context of very few words or gestures. Millie depends on Andrew, if merely as an object for derision, even as Andrew leans heavily on [student] Gilbert's scant appraisal of a long-forgotten book. Subtly, but not out of place, is the theme of achievement and its legitimacy as a catalyst towards self-worth and social entitlement.