Twentieth Century Crime Fiction

First Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Twentieth-Century Crime Fiction aims to enhance understanding of one of the most popular forms of genre fiction by examining a wide variety of the detective and crime fiction produced in Britain and America during the twentieth century. It will be of interest to anyone who enjoys reading crime fiction but is specifically designed with the needs of students in mind. It introduces different theoretical approaches to crime fiction (e.g., formalist, historicist, psychoanalytic, postcolonial, feminist) and will be a useful supplement to a range of crime fiction courses, whether they focus on historical contexts, ideological shifts, the emergence of sub-genres, or the application of critical theories. Forty-seven widely available stories and novels are chosen for detailed discussion. In seeking to illuminate the relationship between different phases of generic development Lee Horsley employs an overlapping historical framework, with sections doubling back chronologically in order to explore the extent to which successive transformations have their roots within the earlier phases of crime writing, as well as responding in complex ways to the preoccupations and anxieties of their own eras. The first part of the study considers the nature and evolution of the main sub-genres of crime fiction: the classic and hard-boiled strands of detective fiction, the non-investigative crime novel (centered on transgressors or victims), and the "mixed" form of the police procedural. The second half of the study examines the ways in which writers have used crime fiction as a vehicle for socio-political critique. These chapters consider the evolution of committed, oppositional strategies, tracing the development of politicized detective and crime fiction, from Depression-era protests against economic injustice to more recent decades which have seen writers launching protests against ecological crimes, rampant consumerism, Reaganomics, racism, and sexism.

First Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

**** Cited in Sheehy and BCL3. The foremost reference in the field, completely revised and updated, and now covering about 600 authors, mainly English-language writers whose work appeared during or since the time of Conan Doyle. The entry for each writer consists of a biography, a bibliography, and a signed critical essay. Living authors were invited to add a comment on their work; many of them accepted, and their remarks are both entertaining and enlightening. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Classic American Crime Writing of the 1920s—including House Without a Key, The Benson Murder Case, The Tower Treasure, The Roman Hat Mystery, The Tower Treasure, and Little Caesar—offers some of the very best of that decade’s writing. Earl Derr Biggers wrote about Charlie Chan, a Chinese-American detective, at a time when racism was rampant. S. S. Van Dine invented Philo Vance, an effete, rich amateur psychologist who flourished while America danced and the stock market rose. Edwin Stratemeyer, a man of mystery himself, singlehandedly created the juvenile mystery, with the beloved Hardy Boys series. The quintessential American detective Ellery Queen leapt onto the stage, to remain popular for fifty years. W. R. Burnett, created the indelible character of Rico, the first gangster antihero. Each of the five novels included is presented in its original published form, with extensive historical and cultural annotations and illustrations added by Edgar-winning editor Leslie S. Klinger, allowing the reader to experience the story to its fullest. Klinger's detailed foreword gives an overview of the history of American crime writing from its beginnings in the early years of America to the twentieth century.

From virtue to honor: a nineteenth-century paradigm shift -- Carroll John Daly and Leo Malet: the first hard-boiled heroes -- Jim Thompson: "Don't you say I killed her!"--Jean-Patrick Manchette: the art of falling apart -- Contemporary hard-boiled: rebuilding a culture hero -- Conclusion

This brief study surveys British and American crime fiction from the first detective stories of Edgar Allan Poe to the present day, exploring the ways in which Poe's basic form has intertwined with more suspense-driven elements to produce fiction featuring spies, private-eyes and serial killers, as well as the classic whodunnit.