Slavery, Surveillance, and Genre in Antebellum United States Literature.

This collection of book reviews focuses on recent scholarly works examining various facets of detective and mystery fiction. The reviewed titles explore themes such as surveillance and racial politics in antebellum U.S. literature; the evolving critical reception of Arthur Conan Doyle's oeuvre beyond Sherlock Holmes; Conan Doyle's complex relationship with photography and spiritualism; the role of food and consumption in constructing masculinity within American hardboiled fiction; Eudora Welty's engagement with mystery genre conventions; epistemological questions of truth and post-truth in American detective fiction; and the ethical, ontological, and political roles of animals in detective narratives. Each work contributes to expanding understanding of detective fiction's thematic depth, cultural contexts, and interdisciplinary connections without overstepping the bounds of their respective focuses.