American Crime Fiction

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

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2. Introduction: Hard Talk and Mean Streets

   • Brian Docherty

   Pages 1-3

3. The Detective Myth in Edgar Allan Poe’s Dupin Trilogy

   • Christopher Rollason

   Pages 4-22

4. Camera Eye/Private Eye

   • Peter Humm

   Pages 23-38

5. Investigating the Investigator: Hammett’s Continental Op

   • Gary Day

   Pages 39-53

6. Radical Anger: Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest

   • Christopher Bentley

   Pages 54-70

7. ‘A Hard Cheerfulness’: An Introduction to Raymond Chandler

   • Stephen Knight

   Pages 71-87

8. Sexuality, Guilt and Detection: Tension between History and Suspense

   • Richard Bradbury

   Pages 88-99

9. Towards a Semiotic Reading of Mickey Spillane

   • Odette L’henry Evans

   Pages 100-114

10. Very Nearly GBH: Savouring the Texts of George V. Higgins

    • Michael J. Hayes

    Pages 115-130

11. Exploding the Genre: The Crime Fiction of Jerome Charyn

    • Mike Woolf

    Pages 131-143

12. Back Matter

    Pages 144-146

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This volume offers critical and theoretical perspectives on one of the most popular and enduring literary genres: American crime fiction. There are essays on Edgar Allan Poe, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, James M.Cain, Mickey Spillane, George V. Higgins and Jerome Charyn, covering the period from 1840 to 1980. Hammett and Chandler have two essays each, reflecting their importance, and lasting influence on the genre. Each essay deals with a major aspect or concept associated with crime fiction. A variety of reading strategies are employed to interrogate these texts, illustrating both the range of approaches available and the fact that modern literary theory can usefully be applied to any text or genre. Students of crime fiction seeking new readings, and readers interested in modern approaches to literature, such as psychoanalytic theories, Marxist theory, semiotics, and linguistic theory, will find this book useful and informative. The essays are all new, and have been specially written for Insights by leading academics.

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