"Crime in Literature" addresses the issues of crime and crime control through the reading of several classical literary works. It is not a work of literary criticism, but a book written by a sociologist who reads fiction sociologically.
Vincenzo Ruggiero s wide-ranging study takes in several authors, including Hugo, Dostoevsky, Camus, Cervantes, Mann and Zola, and addresses themes such as organized crime, the links between crime and drugs, political and administrative corruption, concepts of deviancy, and the criminal justice process.
Ruggiero recounts Alessandro Manzoni s "La colonna...