Then there are the colder countries. Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander series is set in Sweden, while Karin Fossum’s Inspector Sejer mysteries are located in Norway.

So what is it about the crime genre that draws such interest? The very nature of the whodunit genre provides a known — or knowable — structure. It is a constant that gives the writer ever greater latitude to take her explorations into foreign territories. And the very paces of the detective form — with the investigator compelled to reason through clues, proof and motivations — provides an unobtrusive way to slipping into foreign cultures.

In addition, with human emotions and perversions at the core of any crime story, detective fiction breeds its own kind of cosmopolitanism. That is perhaps why so much detective fiction is by authors writing not about their native lands. For instance, Leon on Venice, Smith (above) on Botswana, Nadel on Istanbul.