This book goes beyond now-familiar analyses of 'neoliberal governmentality' which tend to characterise academics as passive subjects or as 'strategic actors', drawing on and cynically exploiting metrics as a form of capital exchangeable across different fields. Instead, Universities in Crisis draws on newer paradigms by drawing on processual, post-critical and phenomenological approaches that leave room for new spaces of negotiation - discursive and practical - for understanding and advancing academic professionalism in this rapidly changing context. Contributors reflect various manifestations of the changing political and public climate, as well as the unease that surrounds contemporary debates which position the academy in troubling ways. Unifying concepts such as academic work, jurisdiction and transdisciplinarity are deployed to transcend functional divisions within and between academics, administrators, managers and students. Drawing on these theoretical and conceptual resources, contributors engage in critical consideration of whether the potential for 'push back' lies both in re-emphasising the specialness of academic professionalism and in defining the commonalities with other professional groups of knowledge workers. The book offers an unflinching analysis on the conditions which frame the darker side of professionalism and which are associated with increased precarity and reduced autonomy. The contributors explore the dilemmas, challenges and possibilities of professionalism for both early career academics and senior academic leaders.

After drinking too much at her bachelorette party, Maggie Trueheart wakes to find a stranger in her bed. To make matters worse, a phone call brings the devastating news that her friend Angie was murdered some time after they parted ways the night before. Kelly Delaney, who left the party early, is the first of Maggie's friends to face questions from Chicago homicide detective Ron O'Reilly. After taking a closer look at the other women who attended the party, O'Reilly concludes that at least some of them are lying. As the clock ticks down to the wedding day and more shocking secrets are revealed, the murderer zeros in on another one of the girls. Can the killer be stopped before there is another victim?

Ski patroller Greta Westerlind discovers there's a darker side to the glamorous skiers' paradise of Aspen in this intriguing thriller. When experienced ski patroller Greta Westerlind awakes in hospital having almost been killed in an avalanche, she is devastated to learn that her close friend, bond trader Warren McGovern, perished in the slide. With no memory of the incident, Greta is at a loss to explain why the two of them were skiing in such lethal terrain in the first place. As she struggles to unlock her memories as to what really happened that day, a series of strange and menacing incidents convinces Greta that someone means to harm her. Then a young woman disappears, and events take a terrifying new twist .

'Ms. O'Connell is, quite simply, a hell of a storyteller, a master of plot, a tart observer of the social scene' FRANK McCOURT 'Few pages are turned without revealing new, surprising twists . . . a clever, enjoyable read' The Times SIX FRIENDS. THREE SECRETS. ONE MURDER. Maggie is set to marry the man of her dreams. Desperate for one wild last night out on the town before her big day, she gathers her closest girlfriends to hit the bars and party until dawn. Only things go wrong - horribly wrong. When Angie's body is found in the park the following morning, their night to remember quickly becomes a nightmare they all wish they could forget. Under police scrutiny, how far will Maggie and her friends go to keep their secrets? Far enough to protect a killer?

Ski patroller Greta Westerlind discovers there's a darker side to the glamorous skiers' paradise of Aspen in this intriguing thriller. When experienced ski patroller Greta Westerlind awakes in hospital having almost been killed in an avalanche, she is devastated to learn that her close friend, bond trader Warren McGovern, perished in the slide. With no memory of the incident, Greta is at a loss to explain why the two of them were skiing in such lethal terrain in the first place. As she struggles to unlock her memories as to what really happened that day, a series of strange and menacing incidents convinces Greta that someone means to harm her. Then a young woman disappears, and events take a terrifying new twist .

Ski patroller Greta Westerlind discovers there's a darker side to the glamorous skiers' paradise of Aspen in this intriguing thriller. When experienced ski patroller Greta Westerlind awakes in hospital having almost been killed in an avalanche, she is devastated to learn that her close friend, bond trader Warren McGovern, perished in the slide. With no memory of the incident, Greta is at a loss to explain why the two of them were skiing in such lethal terrain in the first place. As she struggles to unlock her memories as to what really happened that day, a series of strange and menacing incidents convinces Greta that someone means to harm her. Then a young woman disappears, and events take a terrifying new twist .

The return of blue-blooded fashionista Pauline Cook, whose search for a missing friend leads her from an iconoclastic book group to the deepest and most unfashionable reaches of the Far East.

Back in Chicago after a disastrous European love affair, socialite Pauline Cook finds her finances nearly depleted, her co-op a shambles, and her best friend mysteriously missing--vanished along with Pauline's cat. Though Whitney Armstrong's husband offers a substantial reward for the return of his lost wife, Pauline can't help suspecting that his grief is merely an act. But it's a shocking suggestion by a member of Whitney's book club that really gets Pauline moving--halfway around the world, in fact, to Thailand . . . in spite of a psychic's warning of terrible danger.

In Asia, a morass of dark motives and deadly corporate intrigues await the intrepid globe-trotter. And all the high society connections in the world aren't going to ensure that Pauline makes it home alive. . . .

Newly widowed Pauline Cook was once the toast of the Windy City elite--but now she's practically broke. At least she's in better shape than her dear departed friend Ethan Campbell, whose corpse Pauline has had the misfortune to discover. A writer who chronicled the lives, loves, and ensembles of the Gold Coast's most elegant ladies, Ethan apparently took his own life--while inelegantly clad in old boxers, no less. And since no relatives are coming forward to claim Ethan's remains, it falls to Pauline to settle his final affairs . . . with her own dwindling funds.

However, there are things about Ethan's suicide that don't seem to add up: the ratty undergarments he "chose" to die in, for example . . . and the multiple birth certificates the police turn up in his apartment. Before she can truly lay her friend to rest, plucky Pauline's determined to get to the bottom of his increasingly suspicious death.