ISBN 0-88801-247-0
$14.95 Cdn/$12.95 U.S.
5 x 7-1/2, 339 pages

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Eileen Coughlan

Something sinister is happening in the University of Southwestern Alberta psychology department.

After the annual graduate Christmas party, Emily’s friend and lab partner, Beth Wong, takes a dive out of a ten-storey window. Emily is not convinced that her friend’s death was a suicide, and she takes it upon herself to find out what’s really behind it. After spending time recuperating from the shock with Rusty Monoghan—her landlord, friend, and sometime surrogate mother—Emily returns to the university and is convinced to continue Beth’s work in Dr. Mullarcant’s little shop of horrors.

Emily suspects something about the experiment is going drastically wrong when she learns about Aspen Forty-Five, a phase of the study of which she was previously unaware. As she gets involved in recruiting new subjects for the study (and with the newest tenured professor), another student commits suicide. Emily finds that Mullarcant seems to be imitating the banned Milgram studies, but with a vicious, Nazi-like twist. She begins to collect evidence against him to stop his nefarious experiments but is blocked by students, professors and administrators who have been cowed by the good doctor. In the end, Emily discovers more than she bargained for and learns the lesson of her life.

Dying by Degrees is a powerful but often humorous mystery that raises the question: What if it were me?