- Represents one of the first single-author monographs on Irish crime fiction
- Focuses on several best-selling authors, such as John Connolly, whose work has not received any significant critical study to date
- Grounds itself equally in popular literature studies and Irish studies
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- About this book
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This book examines the recent expansion of Ireland's literary tradition to include home-grown crime fiction. It surveys the wave of books that use genre structures to explore specifically Irish issues such as the Troubles and the rise and fall of the Celtic Tiger, as well as Irish experiences of human trafficking, the supernatural, abortion, and civic corruption. These novels are as likely to address the national regulation of sexuality through institutions like the Magdalen Laundries as they are to follow serial killers through the American South or to trace international corporate conspiracies.
This study includes chapters on Northern Irish crime fiction, novels set in the Republic, women protagonists, and transnational themes, and discusses Irish authors’ adaptations of a well-loved genre and their effect on assumptions about the nature of Irish literature. It is a book for readers of crime fiction and Irish literature alike, illuminating the fertile intersections of the two. - About the authors
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Brian Cliff is Assistant Professor in the School of English at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. His recent publications include essays on John Connolly, Tana French, and Deirdre Madden, and Synge and Edwardian Ireland (2012), co-edited with Nicholas Grene. In November 2013, he co-organized “Irish Crime Fiction: A Festival” in Dublin, which featured 18 Irish and Irish-American crime novelists. He is currently completing a monograph about community and contemporary Irish writing.
- Reviews
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“Cliff surveys with commendable verve the half-charted terrain of ‘Emerald Noir’. … Cliff illuminates a body of fiction that ‘preserves the ambiguities and ambivalences of a complex society’. … Without doubt, Irish Crime Fiction holds a burnished mirror up to the Celtic Tiger and the northern Troubles.” (Liam McIlvanney, The Irish Times, September 01, 2018)
“What Cliff is able to achieve here is an overview, a look at the factors that distinguish Irish crime from the rest of the world, he unlocks the themes and motifs that reoccur. Irish crime writing is rich and diverse and growing. … Cliff uses the example of writers to illustrate themes and trends in Irish crime. … this is a very satisfying read, covering the themes in Irish Crime Fiction.” (Paul Burke, Nudge, nudge-book.com, July, 2018)
“At last! Brian Cliff’s wonderful Irish Crime Fiction is a casefile full of keen insights into Irish crime fiction, a distinct and idiosyncratic genre overdue for meaningful analysis. A thorough and accessible study, this book offers an exploration into how various national anxieties play out in a genre that reaches a broader audience than forms more often associated with national identity. Insights into the anxieties of post-Crash Ireland – what people fear losing or being found by – are brought to the fore in this entertaining investigation. File under ‘I for Intrigue’.” (Lisa Coen, co-founding publisher at Tramp Press)“The vibrant world of contemporary Irish crime fiction finally has the critical book it needs and deserves: Brian Cliff’s thoughtful study tracks developments between and across genres, times and places and offers a nuanced account of the culture and history of Irish crime writing.” (Claire Connolly, Professor of Modern English, University College Cork)
“Although Scandinavian crime fiction has been all the rage lately, readers would be making a mistake if they don’t dive equally deeply into the work of Irish mystery writers who are producing some of the most distinguished literary works of our time. Brian Cliff’s exhaustive study should open doors (and eyes) to the best of this talented coterie.” (Otto Penzler, The Mysterious Bookshop and The Mysterious Press)
“Cliff’s book is a wonderful achievement and a landmark in Irish crime fiction criticism. It wears its impressive scholarship lightly while making some deeply serious claims about the place of Irish crime fiction as the exemplary interlocutor of contemporary Irish social, political and economic life. The scope and range of its account of Irish crime fiction’s emergence and proliferation offers new and exciting ways of thinking about Ireland’s past, present and future, its global connectedness and about the role and function of crime fiction in society. Lucid, intelligent and comprehensive, this is a must-read for all those interested in crime fiction and the rise and rise of Irish crime fiction specifically.” (Dr Andrew Pepper, Queen’s University Belfast and The Senator George J Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice)
- Table of contents (5 chapters)
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Introduction
Pages 1-23
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Northern Irish Crime Fiction
Pages 25-66
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Crime Fiction and Contemporary Ireland
Pages 67-100
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Women and Irish Crime Fiction
Pages 101-139
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Transnational Irish Crime Fiction
Pages 141-180
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Table of contents (5 chapters)
Bibliographic Information
- Bibliographic Information
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- Book Title
- Irish Crime Fiction
- Authors
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- Brian Cliff
- Series Title
- Crime Files
- Copyright
- 2018
- Publisher
- Palgrave Macmillan UK
- Copyright Holder
- The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)
- eBook ISBN
- 978-1-137-56188-6
- DOI
- 10.1057/978-1-137-56188-6
- Hardcover ISBN
- 978-1-137-56187-9
- Softcover ISBN
- 978-1-349-85089-1
- Edition Number
- 1
- Number of Pages
- XI, 203
- Topics
