Burial Plots in British Detective Fiction offers an overview of the
ways in which the past is brought back to the surface and influences the
present in British detective fiction written between 1920 and 2020.
Exploring a range of authors including Agatha Christie, Patricia
Wentworth, Val McDermid, Sarah Caudwell, Georgette Heyer, Dorothy
Dunnett, Jonathan Stroud and Ben Aaronovitch, Lisa Hopkins argues that
both the literal and literary disinterment of the past use elements of
the national past to interrogate the present. As such, in the texts
discussed, uncovering the truth about an individual crime is also
typically an uncovering of a more general connection between the present
and the past. Whether detective novels explore murders on archaeological
digs, hauntings, cold crimes or killings at Christmas, Hopkins explores
the underlying message that you cannot understand the present unless you
understand the past.