People who like mysteries like them for different reasons. Some people like to solve the puzzles. Some people like the characters. Some people like the thrill.
Some people like to think about death.
Notorious, Alfred Hitchcock's wonderful movie starring Ingrid Bergman, seems to be about intrigue and counter-intrigue in wartime South America. We watch the movie, and follow these thoughts. My premise in this seminar is that mysteries can serve as maguffins for delving into some interesting science and technology. We'll read mysteries, but only mysteries where the crime, the detection, or their context involve some interesting piece of science. We'll talk about the mysteries as mysteries, and about the validity of the underlying science.