This second collection of defective detective stories features some of the best of the period, including Russell Gray's gimpy hero Ben Bryn, Edith and Ejler Jacobson's hemophiliac gum-shoe Nat Perry, John Kobler's glaucomatous troubleshooter Peter Quest, and Leon Byrne's deaf detective Dan Holden.

This volume brings together a variety of perspectives on King's contribution to American literature and popular culture. New essays discuss King's attempts to straddle the gap between popular fiction and serious literature and the inspiration of Robert Browning and T.S. Eliot in King's Dark Tower series. Previously published essays explore the tensions between fantasy and reality across King's work, his link to American gothic and romance traditions, and his fortunes among book reviewers, academics, and his peers and readers.

An exploration of the authors and literary works that identify with the American thriller, this volume examines the prominent themes and stories. It presents a variety of new essays on this genre in which oordinaryo heroes are faced with an enemy set on destroying them or something treasured such as freedom or democracy. Rounding out the volume is a list of related thrillers not discussed in the book as well as a bibliography of critical sources for readers seeking to study this theme in greater depth. Salem's Critical Insights series distils the best of both classic and current literary...

Unlike other horror fiction and fantasy writers, Clive Barker is true to the literary heritage of the genre. Though aware of the importance of entertainment in his writing, he embraces the traditional formulas of horror fiction and builds upon them, all the while alluding to the works of Dante, Poe, Mary Shelley, and others.

The complexity of Barker's writing is best evidenced in the six volume Books of Blood . Many of these short stories are entertaining "hair raisers"; yet they do not revel in gratuitous violence, instead relying on style and a masterful sense of language...

Award-winning popular culture scholar and expert, Gary Hoppenstand, assembles a collection of essays published over the past few decades that examine a vast array of popular adventure fiction. Hoppenstand examines the cultural and literary impact of these great works of entertainment, often presenting forgotten classics in a new light.