29 January to 26 March 2025 (no class 19 February)

University of Bristol, Arts Complex, Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1TB

Sian Harris, Jess Farr-Cox, Pam Lock, Joan Passey, Jo Parsons, Jim Hilton, Abs Ashley and special guest author Natasha Pulley

This course aims to be an enjoyable exploration of detective and crime fiction. This year we will focus on novels set in times of chaos and crisis. From the Titanic to a mysterious town in Soviet Russia to the G8 summit in Scotland we will ask how a detective investigates a crime when the community or world around them is in turmoil.

In these novels, the streets are difficult to pace as other events divert and frustrate our investigators, the people distracted by larger concerns, but the job still needs to be done. We will reflect on the way Detective fiction urges us to remember our duty to the individual in worlds focused on the bigger picture, and the rich connections that we can explore between the case and its social and political contexts.  

Ian Rankin, Naming of the Dead
Dorothy L. Sayers, The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club
Truman Capote, In Cold Blood
Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
Graham Greene, The Quiet American
Alma Katsu, The Deep
Attica Locke, Heaven, My Home
Natasha Pulley, The Half Life of Valery K (author talk) 

£180

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