Abstract

This review of two books from McFarland (Julie H. Kim, ed., Race and Religion in the Postcolonial British Detective Story; Gillian Mary Hanson, City and Shore: the Function of Setting in the British Mystery Novel) sets the stage by exploring the contemporary popular debates about the exclusion of detective fiction from serious literary attention and looking at the history of the reception of detective fiction. It finds some praiseworthy work in Race and Religion's essays, with their focus on contemporary characters such as John Mortimer's Rumpole of the Bailey. It is less satisfied with the critical usefulness of City and Shore.

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