Comparative Study of English and Uzbek Detective Fiction

Detective fiction is often regarded as a purely popular genre with a fixed set of devices. A comparative approach shows a different picture. Its structural core – a crime, a mystery, an investigation, evidence, suspicion and a final solution – is shared by different literatures, but each national tradition fills it with its own meaning. The English and Uzbek detectives are a revealing pair: the first is usually seen as the classical source of the genre, while the second developed under very different historical conditions. This paper compares the two traditions in terms of their origins and stages of development, the figure of the investigator and the system of characters, the logic of investigation, composition and evidence, the social world of the plot, the concepts of crime and justice, and the meaning of the final solution. It draws on Robert Galbraith’s The Cuckoo’s Calling and The Silkworm and on Komil Sindarov’s Bir asrlik omonat and Surgundagi sarguzashtlar.