To complement Radio 4's major dramatisations of The Havana Quartet by Cuba's leading crime writer, Leonardo Padura, Mark Lawson, in a new series of Foreign Bodies, examines how mystery novels have reflected five different political systems.

Today Laura Lippman and Walter Mosley - creators of private eyes Tess Monaghan and Easy Rawlins - discuss with Mark Lawson how they introduced the experience of women and black Americans into crime fiction dominated by men and a McCarthyite fear of outsiders. Show less