Ralph Crane is Professor of English at the University of Tasmania. He has written or edited over twenty books, and published numerous journal articles and book chapters, mainly in the area of colonial and postcolonial fictions. His recent work includes several publications in the area of island studies.Lisa Fletcher is Associate Professor of English at the University of Tasmania. She is the author of Historical Romance Fiction: Heterosexuality and Performativity (2008) and the editor of Popular Fiction and Spatiality: Reading Genre Settings (2016). Her current research focuses on popular fiction in the twenty-first century.

• Introduction: Reading Genre Islands/ Part I: Island Crime, Crime Islands/ 1 The Body on the Island: The Insular Geography of Crime Fiction/ 2 Whodunit? Agatha Christie’s Islands/ 3 The Postcolonial Geography of Island Crime: G. W. Kent’s Solomon Island Series/ Part II: Island Thrillers, Thriller Islands/ 4 Top Secret Islands: The Geography of Espionage and Adventure/ 5 Paradise Threatened: The Bond Islands/ 6 The Proximity of Islands: Dirk Pitt’s Insular Adventures / Part III: Island Romance, Romance Islands/ 7 I ♥Islands: The Emotional Geography of Popular Romance/ 8 Love on the Isle of Man: Margaret Evans Porter’s The Islanders Series/ 9 The Island Happy Ever After: Nora Roberts’s Three Sisters Island Trilogy/ Part IV: Island Fantasy, Fantasy Islands/ 10 Islands of the World: The Archipelagic Geography of Fantasy Fiction/ 11 Putting Islands on the Fantasy Map: Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea/ 12 An Imaginary Water World: Robin Hobb’s Liveship Traders Trilogy/ Epilogue/ Bibliography/ Index

This is a highly original and hugely readable book, offering detailed readings of texts by all our favourite genre writers, from Agatha Christie to Ursula K. Le Guin. It is the Island focus, however, that really secures its significance. The range of islands is genuinely global, the intellectual ‘reach’ both serious and innovative, and the research-base impressive. I loved it.