Traveling the World With Detective Fiction

"Escape. It's what many of us are searching for in our reading right now." Thus sayeth Maureen Corrigan, Georgetown University professor and book reviewer for The Washington Post. It's time we escaped to distant destinations through the pages of detective fiction. How about France, India, or Italy, or . . . ?

This course explores some of the factors that make international mystery novels compelling: social issues and dynamics, cultural customs and differences, new landscapes and settings, as well as detecting methods and characters that may be quite different but simultaneously familiar. Anticipated reading includes novels by Martin Walker, John Shen Yen Nee and S.J. Roman, Veseem Khan, and Andrea Camilleri. Class members should read Martin Walker's The Body in the Castle Well before the first class meeting.