ABSTRACT
This chapter uses Timothy Findley’s The Telling of Lies (1986) and Carol Shields’ Swann (1987) as representative examples of Canadian postmodern detective fiction, which self-consciously plays with the classical conventions of the genre. Using a traditional murder mystery (Findley) and an academic literary mystery (Shields), both authors explore the dark possibilities of epistemological and ethical slippages in a postmodern world that might make it difficult or even impossible to ascertain the nature of both “truth” and “goodness.” And yet, both conclude with a sense of optimism that can be read as indicating a hopeful pragmatism in Canadian literary and detective fiction.
