The first collection to articulate the pedagogical strategies of using detective fiction to investigate the politics of difference. The volume examines the many ways in which diversity is posited by contemporary writers exploring distinctive American subcultures. The distinguishing characteristic of the book is its mix of essays focusing on teaching cultural diversity in the classroom and illustrating diversity through fiction to the general reader.
    Among the issues addressed are definitions of diversity; what constitutes ethnicity or race, especially in terms of multiple subjectivities; how race, gender, and ethnicity are culturally constructed; and what part is played by identity politics.

"Real mystery fans will enjoy this survey of nearly 300 female sleuths in 100 years of British and U.S. fiction." -- Feminist Bookstore News
This new edition adds sixty new female private eyes to the roster and includes an afterword that assesses the current state of the genre's new and old novels. A comprehensive bibliography and a character list update the field through mid-1994.

"A highly intelligent analysis." -- Ms.
"Well-researched and well-written. . . . Traces the evolution of sexist boundaries in popular detective fiction from a feminist viewpoint and documents the parallels in social history and the women's rights movement." -- Ronald C. Miller, The Armchair Detective
"Identifies dozens of good novels whose titles are not well known, its promise of good reading extending well beyond its own covers." -- Jane Bakerman, Belles Lettres
 

This volume explores the range of relationships among women writers, women detectives and women-centered mystery fiction, and women readers. Focusing on writers as diverse as Sara Paretsky, Joan Hess, Sarah Caudwell, P. D. James, Katherine V. Forrest, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Sue Grafton, D. R. Meredith, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Barbara Wilson, the authors analyze the development of detective fiction with a different agenda: the woman-authored woman detective.
       The eleven essays concentrate new attention on the trio of reader, writer, and text when all three are modified by the terms “woman” and “mystery.”