Teacher Resources
Ball, John, ed. The Mystery Story. Del Mar, Ca.: Publisher's Inc., 1976. Phyllis A. Whitney, John Ball, Otto Penzler, Hillary Waugh all have something to say about one aspect or another of the mystery from pseudonyms, the spy, the ethnic detective, women in detective fiction, etc.
Bargannier, Earl F., ed. Comic Crime. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1987. Writers talk on the varieties, manifestations, and meanings of comedy in mystery fiction.
Browne, Ray B. Murder on the Reservation American Indian Crime Fiction: Aims and Achievements. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2004. Browne discusses a few writers whose mysteries have Indian culture as a backdrop, e.g. Tony Hillerman. There are interviews with these writers in the last chapter.
Cherniak, Warren, Martin Swales, and Robert Vilain, eds. The Art of Detective Fiction. New York: St. Martin's Press, Inc., 2000. Scholarly treatment of detective fiction. There's a fun chapter on the detective as clown.
Dove, George N. The Reader and the Detective Story. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1997. Abstruse and scholarly. In one chapter he discusses the detective story as a type of play.
Gosselin, Adrienne Johnson ed. Multicultural Detective Fiction: Murder From the "Other" Side. New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1999. Chapters touch on Tony Hillerman, Linda Hogan, Louis Owens, Walter Mosley. Gay and lesbian crime fiction, and more. Scholarly treatment.
Grafton, Sue, with Jan Burke and Barry Zeman eds. Writing Mysteries A Handbook by the Mystery writers of America. Cincinnati, Ohio: Writer's Digest Books, 2002. The nuts and bolts of writing mystery stories from writers, editors and publishers of mysteries.
Haycraft, Howard. The Art of the Mystery Story A Collection of Critical Essays. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946. A smart treatment of the mystery genre by people who know it well.
Johnson, Craig. Kindness Goes Unpunished. New York: Viking Penguin, 2007. You should also look for his other mysteries which take place in Absaroka County, Wyoming, viz. The Cold Dish and Death Without Company.
Nina King ed. Crimes of the Scene A Mystery Novel Guide for the International Traveler. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997. Robin Winks and others describe mysteries occurring in many lands.
Pepper, Andrew. The Contemporary American Crime Novel: Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Class. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2000. Scholarly treatment of American mystery writers of all persuasions. A conflation into one book of many writing perspectives.
Winks, Robin. Modus Operandi: An Excursion into Detective Fiction. Boston: David R. Godine, Publisher, 1982. A clever, idiosyncratic ramble through the field of detective fiction and the byways of spy novels.
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