The Landscape of Canadian Women's Crime Fiction

Tag: mystery

  • Food, Feminism, and Mystery Fiction

    Beth Kalikoff, writing in 2006, called attention to the plethora of mystery novels, most of which were enduring series, that incorporated food directly into the murder plot and not always because the victim was poisoned. As she described, while noting that only limited critical attention had been paid to date to the phenomenon, mystery novels…

  • Joy and Pleasure

    Crime fiction gives its readers much pleasure; Louise Penny’s work, in particular, is attentive to the moments in life when we are “Surprised by Joy.” Penny put out a call in her January newsletter for life advice that’s worth sharing, and her assistant Linda Lyall, working from Scotland, responded with alacrity to the bromide I…

  • Three Pines: Adapting Louise Penny’s Gamache Novels

    Adaptations of Canadian mystery fiction are sometimes ephemeral or short-lived. I’ve been unable to track down copies of the series of TV films based on Gail Bowen’s Joanne Kilbourn novels, although it sounds like there were significant changes. For instance, IMDB describes the character in The Wandering Soul Murders–one of Bowen’s grimmest novels, featuring a…