For decades , mystery novels have been dismissed as "potboilers , " not worthy of serious critical attention . Whatever one may think of the literary merits of mysteries , there is no denying the fact that they have proved to be a remarkably resilient and diverse form of popular fiction . This course surveys a selection of both the most important examples of mystery writing and recent attempts to update the genre . Our focus will be on the narrative techniques used by these writers to create character , structure plot , and maintain suspense . We can tell a lot about a society from the way it discusses crime and punishment . Therefore , we will also study how novels and short stories by Edgar Allan Poe , Sir Arthur Conan Doyle , Agatha Christie , Dashiell Hammett , Thomas Harris and others provide miniature social histories of the periods in which they were written . For example : Prof . D . Schmid , Mystery Novel as Cultural Artifact For decades , mystery novels have been dismissed as "potboilers , " not worthy of serious critical attention . Whatever one may think of the literary merits of mysteries , there is no denying the fact that they have proved to be a remarkably resilient and diverse form of popular fiction . This course will survey a selection of both the most important examples of mystery writing and recent attempts to "update" the genre . Our focus will be on the narrative techniques used by these writers to create character , structure plot , and maintain suspense . We can tell a lot about a society from the way it discusses crime and punishment . Therefore , we will also study how these novels and short stories provide miniature social histories of the periods in which they were written .