AUDIOBOOK
The Secrets of Great Mystery and Suspense Fiction
The complete course contains all 36 lectures
David SchmidSeries: Great Courses Audio4.3
(34)
About
One of the most captivating components of this course is how Professor Schmid—both an avid fan of mystery and suspense and a scholar of the genre— surveys the same works through many lenses, giving you a different perspective each time. With Professor Schmid as your guide, you’ll examine the use and many variations of characters such as the detective, the criminal, the sidekick, the private eye, the police officer, and the femme fatale, as well as how the interconnections between these character types both define and defy their genres. For example, the relationship between the detective and police or the juxtaposition of criminal and private eye can help delineate subgenres within mystery and suspense fiction.
Professor Schmid considers the ways certain works might utilize clues, solutions, poetic justice, and violence, taking you through centuries of history and various sorts of suspense fiction to pinpoint specific examples. As authors experimented with the form over time, you’ll learn how books with ambiguous or unsolved conclusions became gradually more accepted into the mainstream, reflecting a change in the audience who once saw open-ended conclusions as simply frustrating or unsettling.
All Lectures:
1. Mystery Fiction's Secret Formula
2. The Detective Is Born
3. The Criminal
4. The Sidekick
5. Detecting Clues
6. Case Closed? The Problem with Solutions
7. The Locked Room
8. The Dime Novel
9. Murder in Cozy Places
10. Return of the Classic Detective
11. The City Tests the Detective
12. The Private Eye Opens
13. African American Mysteries
14. The Femme Fatale
15. The Private Eye Evolves
16. Latino Detectives on the Border
17. The Lady Detective
18. Violence Waits in the Wings
19. Violence Takes Center Stage
20. Psychopaths and Mind Hunters
21. Police as Antagonist
22. Police as Protagonist
23. Native American Mysteries
24. The European Mystery Tradition
25. Nordic Noir
26. Japanese and Latin American Mysteries
27. Precursors to True Crime
28. True Crime in the 20th Century
29. Historical Mysteries
30. Spies, Thrillers, and Conspiracies
31. Female-Centered Mystery and Suspense
32. Poetic Justice
33. Courtroom Drama
34. Gay and Lesbian Mystery and Suspense
35. Adapting the Multimedia Mystery
36. Mysterious Experiments
Professor Schmid considers the ways certain works might utilize clues, solutions, poetic justice, and violence, taking you through centuries of history and various sorts of suspense fiction to pinpoint specific examples. As authors experimented with the form over time, you’ll learn how books with ambiguous or unsolved conclusions became gradually more accepted into the mainstream, reflecting a change in the audience who once saw open-ended conclusions as simply frustrating or unsettling.
All Lectures:
1. Mystery Fiction's Secret Formula
2. The Detective Is Born
3. The Criminal
4. The Sidekick
5. Detecting Clues
6. Case Closed? The Problem with Solutions
7. The Locked Room
8. The Dime Novel
9. Murder in Cozy Places
10. Return of the Classic Detective
11. The City Tests the Detective
12. The Private Eye Opens
13. African American Mysteries
14. The Femme Fatale
15. The Private Eye Evolves
16. Latino Detectives on the Border
17. The Lady Detective
18. Violence Waits in the Wings
19. Violence Takes Center Stage
20. Psychopaths and Mind Hunters
21. Police as Antagonist
22. Police as Protagonist
23. Native American Mysteries
24. The European Mystery Tradition
25. Nordic Noir
26. Japanese and Latin American Mysteries
27. Precursors to True Crime
28. True Crime in the 20th Century
29. Historical Mysteries
30. Spies, Thrillers, and Conspiracies
31. Female-Centered Mystery and Suspense
32. Poetic Justice
33. Courtroom Drama
34. Gay and Lesbian Mystery and Suspense
35. Adapting the Multimedia Mystery
36. Mysterious Experiments
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