Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Clair DeWitt and the City of the Dead:
1. How would you describe Claire DeWitt? Do you find her endearing...or frustrating and irritating? What kind of emotional baggage does she carry around with her?
2. Talk about Claire's unorthodox detection methods—her use of dreams, omens and the I-Ching? How does drug use, according to Claire, enhance her investigatory powers? Talk about some of the clues Claire uncovers—the business card, for one. Could you follow her reasoning or intuitions? Did they make sense to you?
3. Silette's Detection claims that detective work has more to do with introspection into the detective's own life than with standard investigatory procedures. Is that true? How does the statement relate to Claire DeWitt? How does her investigation into Vic Willing's disappearance become an investigation into her own psyche?
4. More from Stilette's Detection: "The client already knows the solution to his mystery. But he doesn't want to know. He doesn't hire a detective to solve his mystery He hires a detective to prove that his mystery can't be solved." How is this passage from Detection relevant to the mystery at hand? Are there other passages in Detection that struck you?
5. Are Claire's frequent references to Detection—and its philosophical commentary—illuminating? Or are they distracting and overly digressive?
6. What did you make of Claire's relationship with Andray and Terrell? Like Claire, were you suspicious of Andray as the possible murderer?
7. New Orleans might be considered a character in its own right. Why would Gran have decided to use the city, post-Katrina, as a setting for her mystery? In what way is the city significant—thematically and atmospherically—as a backdrop for the story? What have you learned about New Orleans that you were previously unaware of?
8. Were you able to follow the novel's structure as it jumped back and forth from Claire's past to the present? At what point did the various elements begin to pull together for you?
9. Is the clue that ultimately breaks the case plausible? Or does it require too large a leap in logic to be credible?
10. Overall, what are your impressions of Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead? Is it a compelling read? A despressing one? Does it deliver as a suspenseful, engaging murder mystery? Or did it fail to get off the ground for you? Will you be following new books as they appear in the series?
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