Focusing on two central novels by Roberto Bolaño, Los detectives salvajes and 2666, as works of crime fiction, this chapter considers them from the point of view of the rules of the detective and murder genre. The role of the detective and the construction of the puzzle emerge in each of the two novels as both a crime and a literary question. Situating the novels in the context of the impunity and violence that defined the experience of Mexico in the last three decades, the chapter proposes an alternative way to appreciate Bolaño’s depiction of violence, less as a philosophical statement about modernity and more as an ironic vision of literature and contemporary ideologies.