Focusing on late nineteenth- and twentieth-century stories of detection, policing, and espionage by British and South Asian writers, Yumna Siddiqi presents an original and compelling exploration of the cultural anxieties created by imperialism. She suggests that while colonial writers use narratives of intrigue to endorse imperial rule, postcolonial writers turn the generic conventions and topography of the fiction of intrigue on its head, launching a critique of imperial power that makes the repressive and emancipatory impulses of postcolonial modernity visible. Siddiqi devotes the first part of her book to the colonial fiction of Arthur Conan Doyle and John Buchan, in which the British regime's preoccupation with maintaining power found its voice. The rationalization of difference, pronouncedly expressed through the genre's strategies of representation and narrative resolution, helped to reinforce domination and, in some cases, allay fears concerning the loss of colonial power. In the second part, Siddiqi argues that late twentieth-century South Asian writers also underscore the state's insecurities, but unlike British imperial writers, they take a critical view of the state's authoritarian tendencies. Such writers as Amitav Ghosh, Michael Ondaatje, Arundhati Roy, and Salman Rushdie use the conventions of detective and spy fiction in creative ways to explore the coercive actions of the postcolonial state and the power dynamics of a postcolonial New Empire. Drawing on the work of leading theorists of imperialism such as Edward Said, Frantz Fanon, and the Subaltern Studies historians, Siddiqi reveals how British writers express the anxious workings of a will to maintain imperial power in their writing. She also illuminates the ways South Asian writers portray the paradoxes of postcolonial modernity and trace the ruses and uses of reason in a world where the modern marks a horizon not only of hope but also of economic, military, and ecological disaster.

A provocative examination of how the British colonial experience in India was shaped by chronic unease, anxiety, and insecurity.

'War, Espionage, and Masculinity in British Fiction' explores the masculinities represented in British works spanning more than a century. Studies of Rudyard Kipling’s 'The Light That Failed' (1891) and Erskine Childer’s 'The Riddle of the Sands' (1903) investigate masculinities from before World War I, at the height of the British Empire. A discussion of R.C. Sherriff’s play 'Journey’s End' takes readers to the battlefields of World War I, where duty and the harsh realities of modern warfare require men to perform, perhaps to die, perhaps to be unmanned by shellshock. From there we see how Dorothy Sayers developed the character of Peter Wimsey as a model of masculinity, both strong and successful despite his own shellshock in the years between the world wars. Graham Greene’s The Heart of the Matter (1948) and The Quiet American (1955) show masculinities shaken and questioning their roles and their country’s after neither world war ended all wars and the Empire rapidly lost ground. Two chapters on 'The Innocent' (1990), Ian McEwan’s fictional account of a real collaboration between Great Britain and the United States to build a tunnel that would allow them to spy on the Soviet Union, dig deeply into the 1950’s Cold War to examine the fictional masculinity of the British protagonist and the real world and fictional masculinities projected by the countries involved. Explorations of Ian Fleming’s 'Casino Royale' (1953) and 'The Living Daylights' (1962) continue the Cold War theme. Discussion of the latter film shows a confident, infallible masculinity, optimistic at the prospect of glasnost and the potential end of Cold War hostilities. John le Carré’s 'The Night Manager' (1993) and its television adaptation take espionage past the Cold War. The final chapter on Ian McEwan’s 'Saturday' (2005) shows one man’s reaction to 9/11.

Focusing on Britain, France and Germany in the first half of the twentieth century, this book examines the emergence of new transnational networks and ideologies among anticolonialists from the British and French colonies who were active in Europe, and the pro-colonial authorities who tried to control them through surveillance.

Why does crime feature at the center of so many postcolonial novels set in major cities? This book interrogates the connections that can be found between narratives of crime, cities, and colonialism to bring to light the ramifications of this literary preoccupation, as well as possibilities for cultural, aesthetic, and political catharsis. Examining late-twentieth- and twenty-first-century novels set in London, Belfast, Mumbai, Sydney, Johannesburg, Nairobi, and urban areas in the Palestinian West Bank, Criminal Cities considers the marks left by neocolonialism and imperialism on the structures, institutions, and cartographies of twenty-first-century cities. Molly Slavin suggests that literary depictions of urban crime can offer unique capabilities for literary characters, as well as readers, to process and negotiate that lingering colonial violence, while also providing avenues for justice and forms of reparations.

For over two decades, Clues has included the best scholarship on mystery and detective fiction. With a combination of academic essays and nonfiction book reviews, it covers all aspects of mystery and detective fiction material in print, television and movies. As the only American scholarly journal on mystery fiction, Clues is essential reading for literature and film students and researchers; popular culture aficionados; librarians; and mystery authors, fans and critics around the globe.

Accessible exploration of Sherlock Holmes and his relationship to late-Victorian culture as well as his ongoing significance and popularity.