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Palgrave Macmillan

American Crime Fiction

Studies in the Genre

  • Book
  • © 1988

Overview

Editors:
  1. Brian Docherty
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Part of the book series: Insights (ISI)

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Table of contents (10 chapters)

  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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Keywords

About this book

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.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: American Crime Fiction

  • Book Subtitle: Studies in the Genre

  • Editors: Brian Docherty

  • Series Title: Insights

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19225-0

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan London

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts Collection, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 1988

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-349-19225-0Published: 04 May 1988

  • Series ISSN: 2947-2830

  • Series E-ISSN: 2947-2849

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: X, 146

  • Topics: Fiction

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