ABSTRACT
Throughout her storied career, Margaret Atwood has long employed tropes from detective fiction and, as Jackie Shead has compellingly argued, has repeatedly presented detective figures investigating mysteries and crimes—often from Canada’s past—only to discover that these characters are themselves interpellated subjects, at once trapped by and complicit with hegemonic forces. This chapter reads Atwood’s post-apocalyptic Madd Addam trilogy (2003–2013) through its crime fiction tropes, arguing that Atwood uses games and stories to show that some crimes can neither be understood nor contained by detective figures. Rather, they might require thoughtful beings using a variety of epistemological and ethical frameworks—including the posthuman—to identify, articulate, and effectively respond to existential threats.
