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

Australia's leading crime novelist, the South African-born Peter Temple -- whose books include The Broken Shore and Truth -- talks to Mark Lawson about depicting a society shaped by both British colonialism and American power and why Australian crime fiction should contain as few words as possible. Show less