Crime Fiction provides a lively introduction to what is both a wide-ranging and hugely popular literary genre. Using examples from a variety of novels, short stories, films and televisions series, John Scaggs:
- presents a concise history of crime fiction - from biblical narratives to James Ellroy - broadening the genre to include revenge tragedy and the gothic novel
- explores the key sub-genres of crime fiction, such as 'Rational Criminal Investigation', The Hard-Boiled Mode', 'The Police Procedural' and 'Historical Crime Fiction'
- locates texts and their recurring themes and motifs in a wider social and historical context
- outlines the various critical concepts that are central to the study of crime fiction, including gender, narrative theory and film theory
- considers contemporary television series like C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation alongside the 'classic' whodunnits of Agatha Christie.
Accessible and clear, this comprehensive overview is the essential guide for all those studying crime fiction and concludes with a look at future directions for the genre in the twentieth-first century.
| SERIES EDITOR'S PREFACE |
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ix | |
| ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS |
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| Introduction |
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1 | (6) |
| 1 A Chronology of Crime |
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7 | (26) |
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7 | (6) |
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Crime Stories as Cautionary Tales |
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13 | (4) |
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Crime Fiction and Policing |
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17 | (9) |
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The Golden Age to the Present |
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26 | (7) |
| 2 Mystery and Detective Fiction |
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33 | (22) |
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Retracing the Steps: The Origins of Mystery Fiction |
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33 | (6) |
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Reasoning Machines: The Figure of the Amateur Detective |
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39 | (4) |
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Escalating Crimes: From Purloined Letters to Murder |
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43 | (3) |
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Maintaining Social Order and the Status Quo |
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46 | (4) |
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50 | (5) |
| 3 The Hard-Boiled Mode |
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55 | (30) |
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Murder for a Reason: Origins and Development |
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55 | (3) |
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A Shop-Soiled Galahad: The Private Eye Hero |
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58 | (6) |
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Last Chances and New Beginnings: The Myth of the Frontier |
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64 | (6) |
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Mean Streets and Urban Decay: Modernity and the City |
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70 | (7) |
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Fallen Angels: Appropriation of the Hard-Boiled Mode |
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77 | (8) |
| 4 The Police Procedural |
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85 | (20) |
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Thin Blue Lines: Fiction as Ideological State Apparatus |
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85 | (2) |
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Private Eye to Public Eye: The Development of the Procedural |
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87 | (4) |
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Textual Investigations: Characteristics of the Procedural |
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91 | (7) |
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Social Placebo: The Magic Bullet of Procedural Reassurance |
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98 | (2) |
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Arrested Developments: Appropriations of the Procedural |
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100 | (5) |
| 5 The Crime Thriller |
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105 | (17) |
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Outlining the Crime Thriller |
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105 | (3) |
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108 | (9) |
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The Anti-Conspiracy Thriller |
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117 | (5) |
| 6 Historical Crime Fiction |
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122 | (22) |
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Writing History and Interpreting the Past |
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122 | (3) |
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Crime, History, and Realism |
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125 | (10) |
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The Case of The Name of the Rose |
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135 | (4) |
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Postmodernism and the Anti-Detective Novel |
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139 | (5) |
| GLOSSARY |
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144 | (5) |
| SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING |
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149 | (2) |
| SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY |
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151 | (15) |
| INDEX |
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166 | |
John Scaggs is a Lecturer in the Department of English at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick, Ireland. His research interests include Modern Fiction, with a particular emphasis on crime fiction and revenge tragedy, the Gothic and Literary Theory.
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