In Southern Cross, Cornwell moves into the territory of the Southern Gothic and of the satiric. Her literary precedents are Flannery O'Connor, as in the short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find," and John Kennedy O'Toole, as in the novel A Confederacy of Dunces. These are stories which depict Southern regional types with a satiric edge and which capture the differences between their world view and mainstream views. O'Connor captures the religious obsessions and metaphysical speculations that produce a coldblooded existential killer, a rural misfit striking out at the emptiness and meaninglessness of the universe; O'Toole, in turn, spoofs Southern ways (in this case, South Louisi ana ways) of thinking and acting, and paints hilarious portraits of eccentric behavior and Southern urban oddities.

In general, detective fiction lends itself easily to satire as a means by which to attack human frailties and the limitations...