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The detective figure in contemporary American crime fiction increasingly relies on revenge to bring about justice in a society where there has been a sharp decline in moral values. This study demonstrates how the notion of the detective as a moral exemplar or heroic ideal breaks down in the works of writers such as James Ellroy and Sara Paretsky.
When a different kind of justice is needed -- swift, effective, and personal -- a new type of avenger must take action. Vengeance features new stories by bestselling crime writers including Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Dennis Lehane, and Karin Slaughter, as well as some of today's brightest rising talents. The heroes in these stories include a cop who's seen too much, a woman who has been pushed too far, or just an ordinary person doing what the law will not. Some call them vigilantes, others claim they are just another brand of criminal. Edited and with an introduction by Lee Child, these stories reveal the shocking consequences when men and women take the law into their own hands.
The primary aim of Studying Crime in Fiction: An Introduction is to introduce the emerging cross-disciplinary area of study that combines the fields of crime fiction studies and criminology. The study of crime fiction as a genre has a long history within literary studies, and is becoming increasingly prominent in twenty-first-century scholarship. Less attention, however, has been paid to the ways in which elements of criminology, or the systematic study of crime and criminal behaviour from a wide range of perspectives, have influenced the production and reception of crime narratives. Similarly, not enough attention has been paid to the ways in which crime fiction as a genre can inform and enliven the study of criminology. Written largely for undergraduate and graduate students, but also for scholars of crime fiction and criminology interested in thinking across disciplinary boundaries, Studying Crime in Fiction: An Introduction provides full coverage of the backgrounds of the related fields of crime fiction studies and criminology, and explores the many ways they are reciprocally illuminating. The four main chapters in Section 1 (Orient You) familiarize readers with the history and contours of the broad fields within which Studying Crime in Fiction: An Introduction operates. It introduces the history of crime and criminology, as well the history of crime fiction and the academic field dedicated to its study. In its final chapter it looks at the ways these areas of study can be conceptually interrelated. Section 2 of the book (Equip You) is dedicated to examining aspects of criminological theory in relation to various forms of crime fiction. It highlights a range of the most relevant theories, paradigms, and problematics of criminology that appear in, shed light on, or can be effectively illuminated through reference to crime fiction. Its five chapters deal with the definition of crime; explanations for crime and criminal behaviour; investigations into crime; the experience of crime; and, finally, punishments for crime. All of these areas are examined alongside examples of crime fiction drawn from across the genre’s history. Section 3 (Enable You) presents six case studies. Each of these reads a work of crime fiction alongside one or more criminological approaches. Each case study is supplemented with a set of questions addressing issues central to the study of crime in fiction.
Narrative plays a central role for individual and collective lives - this insight has arguably only grown at a time of multiple social and cultural challenges in the 21st century. The present volume aims to actualize and further substantiate the case for literature and narrative, taking inspiration from Vera Nünning's eminent scholarship over the past decades. Engaging with her formative interdisciplinary work, the volume seeks to explore potentials of change through the transformative power of literature and narrative - to be harnessed by individuals and groups as agents of positive change in today's world. The book is located at the intersection of cognitive and cultural narratology and is concerned with the way literature affects individuals, how it works at an intersubjective level, enabling communication and community, and how it furthers social and cultural change.
At the heart of crime fiction is an investigation into an act of violence. Studies of the genre have generally centered on the relationship between the criminal and the investigator. Focusing on contemporary crime fiction from the Spanish-speaking world, this collection of new essays explores the role of the victim. Contributors discuss how the definition of "victim," the nature of the crime, the identification of the body and its treatment by authorities reflect shifting social landscapes, changing demographics, economic crises and political corruption and instability.
Nominated for the 2023 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Critical / Biography The first specifically academic companion to contemporary scholarship on the work of Agatha Christie, this book includes chapters by an international group of scholars writing on topics and fields of study as various as ecocriticism and the anthropocene, popular modernism, middlebrow fiction, queer theory, feminism, crime and the state, and more. It addresses a broad selection of Christie's crime novels, as well as her short stories, literary novels written pseudonymously, and her own and others' dramatic adaptations for television, film, and the stage. Featuring unprecedented access to images and content held in Christie's personal archive, as well as a Foreword from renowned crime fiction writer Val McDermid, this is essential reading for anyone interested in Christie's work and legacy.
Little is known about the boy detective in Japanese detective fiction despite his popularity. Who is he, and what mysteries does he unveil about cultural understandings of youth in Japanese society? Manga, Murder and Mystery answers these questions by exploring the figure of the shonen (boy) detective in commercially successful manga series such as Detective Conan, The Case Files of Young Kindaichi, Death Note and Moriarty the Patriot. The book explores how these popular works tackle the crisis of young adult culture within the socioeconomic climate of Japan's 'lost decade' and Heisei era, broadly speaking. Mimi Okabe shows how detective manga materialized in a nation undergoing a state of crisis and how the boy detective emerged as a site of national trauma to address perceived youth problems but in thematically different ways.
This book explores why crime fiction so often alludes to Shakespeare. It ranges widely over a variety of authors including classic golden age crime writers such as the four ‘queens of crime’ (Allingham, Christie, Marsh, Sayers), Nicholas Blake and Edmund Crispin, as well as more recent authors such as Reginald Hill, Kate Atkinson and Val McDermid. It also looks at the fondness for Shakespearean allusion in a number of television crime series, most notably Midsomer Murders, Inspector Morse and Lewis, and considers the special sub-genre of detective stories in which a lost Shakespeare play is found. It shows how Shakespeare facilitates discussions about what constitutes justice, what authorises the detective to track down the villain, who owns the countryside, national and social identities, and the question of how we measure cultural value.
Informed by fourth-wave feminism, Crime Fiction in the Age of #MeToo presents a compelling and timely reading of crime fiction in the age of #MeToo. The book explores five major fourth-wave feminist topics, #MeToo, rape culture, toxic masculinity, LBGTQ+ perspectives, and transgender. These topics have been the subject of intense feminist scrutiny and campaigning, and the book demonstrates how this attention is reflected in contemporary crime fiction and its generic and thematic preoccupations. The book opens with a chapter presenting an overview of existing critical perspectives and feminist debates, demonstrating how fourth-wave feminist ideas and debates are inspiring innovations in the genre, as well as generating fresh ways of reading past and present crime fictions. Providing an overview and context for both fourth-wave feminism and the #MeToo movement, the chapter establishes the critical and cultural framework for its analysis. The chapter also outlines the book’s methodology and approach, detailing the contents of the chapters. Each of the five subsequent chapters uses critical vocabulary and concepts from feminism and the #MeToo movement to reassess canonical works and present new readings of contemporary crime fiction, producing compelling analyses of gender and genre. Canonical authors whose works are discussed include Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, Josephine Tey, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, and Val McDermid. Examining selected contemporary novels and short stories, the chapters in Crime Fiction in the Age of #MeToo provide fresh readings of both well-known and lesser-known crime authors. The contemporary authors whose work is examined are Lauren Henderson, Susan White, Jennifer Haigh, Allison Leotta, Y.A. Erskine, Heather Fitt, John Harvey, Dorothy Koomson, Pekka Hiltunen, Nekesa Afia, Michael Nava, Stella Duffy, Alex Reeve, V.T. Davy, and Dharma Kelleher. Through its critical examination of crime fiction, Crime Fiction in the Age of #MeToo offers a powerful feminist analysis of the genre which draws links between literature and ongoing urgent social and cultural debates such as the #Metoo movement and fourth-wave feminism.
American Revenge Narratives critically examines the nation’s vengeful storytelling tradition. With essays on late twentieth and twenty-first century fiction, film, and television, it maps the coordinates of the revenge genre’s contemporary reinvention across American culture. By surveying American revenge narratives, this book measures how contemporary payback plots appraise the nation’s political, social, and economic inequities. The volume’s essays collectively make the case that retribution is a defining theme of post-war American culture and an artistic vehicle for critique. In another sense, this book presents a scholarly coming to terms with the nation’s love for vengeance. By investigating recent iterations of an ancient genre, contributors explore how the revenge narrative evolves and thrives within American literary and filmic imagination. Taken together, the book’s diverse chapters attempt to understand American culture’s seemingly inexhaustible production of vengeful tales.