Kategoria BISAC: Literary Criticism >> Mystery & Detective Fiction

Since its appearance nearly two centuries ago, crime fiction has gripped readers' imaginations around the world. Detectives have varied enormously: from the nineteenth-century policemen (and a few women), through stars like Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple, to newly self-aware voices of the present - feminist, African American, lesbian, gay, postcolonial and postmodern.
Stephen Knight's fascinating book is a comprehensive analytic survey of crime fiction from its origins in the nineteenth century to the present day. Knight explains how and why the various forms of the genre have...

Providing an overview of all aspects of the life and times of the world-famous detective, Riley and McAllister offer interesting and entertaining information about the fictional sleuth. Along with the trivia and information, the authors insert historical background on Victorian England, a short biography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and brief synopses of the Holmes stories. Additional chapters cover explanations of rank in the British nobility, drugs used in the era, and the wars mentioned in the stories. Several chapters make forays into understanding the psychology of Holmes, his...

We indulge our fascination with detection in many ways, only some of which occur in the detective story. In fact, modern fiction regularly uses elements of a detective narrative to tell another story altogether, to engage characters, narrators, and readers with questions of identity, with examinations of moral and ethical reasoning, with critiques of social and political injustices, and with the metaphysics of meaning itself. Detective plots cross cultural and national boundaries and occur in different ways and different genres. Taken together, they suggest important contemporary...

'The foreigner' is a familiar character in popular crime fiction, from the foreign detective whose outsider status provides a unique perspective on a familiar or exotic location to the xenophobic portrayal of the criminal 'other'. Exploring popular crime fiction from across the world, The Foreign in International Crime Writing examines these popular works as 'transcultural contact zones' in which writers can tackle such issues as national identity, immigration, globalization and diaspora communities. Offering readings of 20th and 21st century crime writing from Norway, the UK, India,...