Presents an analysis of detective fiction and the works of some of its most noteworthy authors.

An assessment of the novels of Dorothy L. Sayers and her place in the history of detection as well as in the larger tradition of the English novel. Includes the detective and mystery fiction, Sayers on women, and the religious dimension of her act.

"It has been one hundred years since Agatha Christie wrote her first novel and created the formidable Hercule Poirot. A brilliant and award winning biographer, Laura Thompson now turns her sharp eye to Agatha Christie. Arguably the greatest crime writer in the world, Christie's books still sell over four million copies each year-- more than thirty years after her death-- and it shows no signs of slowing. But who was the woman behind these mystifying,...