The two stories of detective fiction

My paper discusses the double narrative of modern detective fiction: the crime and the investigation1 and how this can be utilised in the literary theory classroom at undergraduate level. It argues that there are strong similarities between the process of detection and the reading process. As the reader joins the detective in assessing clues and false trails and in making connections between seemingly unrelated facts and evidence, he makes the story his own. Based on Jacqueline Winspear’s first novel in the ‘Maisie Dobbs’ series (set in the aftermath of World War One), I explore the relationship between the story of the crime and the story of the investigation and how the reader connects the two. Because the crimes in modern detective novels about World War One are almost invariably connected to events that took place during the War, the reader also gains valuable insights into one of the most cataclysmic events of the twentieth century.