The many variations of the detective novel--from the British "cozy" to American "hardboiled" thrillers--have long been staples of popular culture. The pleasure that many derive from it is, oddly enough, formed by a deeply paradoxical nature of the genre: the surprise of the final revelation combined with the predictability of its narrative form and devices. Yet this very predictability has also allowed writers to use the conventions of the mystery novel to achieve different effects, to tell other stories, and oftentimes to transgress the genre itself. In this class, we will read and discuss works by various American ethnic writers and their use of the forms and conventions of the mystery novel to ask: how do we understand the relationship between ethnic identities, histories, experiences and the genres, conventions, and other elements of detective fictions? How do the different writers use conventions of detective fictions, and to what purposes?