"[An] ambitious book... [Kern's] focus on murder keeps things pleasantly lurid, and his erudition and passion shine through on every page."
Publishers Weekly "Thoughtful and carefully done, the fruit of considerable research."
Richard A. Posner, Science "Kern has mastered the novels, the critical literature, and the works by philosophers and sociologists bearing on his thesis... [R]eaders familiar with the novels will see ... Read morethem in a new light."
Jonathan Beard, Scientific American "As a history of science and ideas, Kern's study succeeds brilliantly. Gathering the disparate knowledge systems of nearly two centuries into discrete categories, Kern produces a taxonomy of causality that is cogent and convincing... From Enlightenment positivism to quantum discontinuity; from religion to existentialism, and phrenology to cybernetics; from Freud to Nietzsche to Foucault, and from Darwin to Durkheim to Derrida: Kern ranges comfortably (and profitably) among them all. Specialists and novice alike will find much hereto learn and admire."
Peter Okun, American Historical Review "Murder stories, Kern argues, are a sort of cultural repository of thoughts about causality, of how things fit together. From the pseudo-scientific deductions of Conan Doyle to the postmodern self-reflections of Don DeLillo, Philip Kerr and Robert Coover, detective stories demonstrate how we cope with the biggest contingency of all: conscious killing."
Mark Kingwell, The Globe and Mail "Causality, Stephen Kern concedes, is hard to define and even harder to prove... [T]his book is highly recommended to everyone interested in smart and engaging interdisciplinary scholarship."
Peter Okun, American Historical Review "[An] impressive study of causality... Kern offers some fascinating insights into the relationship between science and literature, as well as the history of our attempts to explain the why and wherefore."
PD Smith, The Guardian Show Less