The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing cover

The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing

by Rosemary Herbert

"Entertaining and authoritative, this alphabetically arranged companion is an indispensable reference guide to crime and mystery writing. Unique in its biographical and critical treatment of major detective writers, it is a comprehensive digest to the genre's lexicon, characters, themes, time periods, milieus, and curiosities."--"Outstanding Reference Sources," American Libraries, May 2001.

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?