Clues and Corpses: The Detective Fiction and Mystery Criticism of Todd Downing

426 pp. Clues and Corpses investigates the life and genre writing of Oklahoma Choctaw detective novelist Todd Downing (1902-1974). Included in this volume are nearly 300 annotated mystery book reviews from the 1930s by Downing and Downing's essay "Murder is a Rather Serious Business" (1943), as well as analysis of Downing's own detective fiction, most of which is set in Mexico.