This book establishes new perspectives on mystery, as it is enacted and encoded in the genre of detective fiction. Essays reclaim detective fiction as an object of critical inquiry, examining how it shapes issues of social destabilization, moral ambiguity, reader complicity, intertextuality, and metafiction. Discussing modern works of mystery and classic pieces, essays examine the effect of mystery on literary forms and on readers, addressing a variety of forms including novels, plays, graphic novels, television series, films, and ipad games. Scholars of mystery and detective fiction, crime fiction, genre studies, and cultural studies will find this book invaluable.