1. To add to the pleasure of reading 2. To utilize and sharpen critical skills acquired in other literature courses 3. To gain an in-depth understanding of a popular literary genre through analytical and critical study 4. To better understand the interplay between mystery genre and its socio-economic background.

Texts:
Allingham, Margery. The Tiger in the Smoke (1952).
Christie, Agatha. The Murder at the Vicarage (1930).
James, P. D. Shroud for a Nightingale (1971).
Rendell, Ruth. Death Notes (1981)
Sayers, Dorothy L. Whose Body? (1923).

References:
Bargainnier, Earl F. 10 Women of Mystery. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling
Green State University Popular Press, 1981.
Knight, Stephen. Form and Ideology in Crime Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1980.
Kungl, Carla T. Creating the Fictional Female Detective: The Sleuth Heroines of
British Women Writers, 1890-1940. NC: McFarland, 2006.
James, P. D. Talking about Detective Fiction NY: Knopf, 2009.
Plain, Gill. Twentieth-Century Crime Fiction: Gender, Sexuality and the Body.
Edinburgh, England: Edinburg University Press, 2001.