Crime Fiction

 

 

This section of Crimeculture.com aims eventually to include introductions to all aspects of crime fiction, from the Victorian detective novel to the contemporary graphic novel.  The site also includes numerous articles on crime and detective fiction.   Please see our Articles section for topics currently available. 

 

For crime fiction sections see below.

Articles currently available on the site discuss, amongst other things, the Sherlock Holmes stories; the fiction of Paul Auster, Graham Greene, Edward Anderson, James M. Cain, David Goodis, Chester Himes, Jim Thompson, Patricia Highsmith, Marc Behm, Nicholas Blincoe, Patricia Cornwell, Sarah Paretsky, Helen Zahavi; William Gibson's 'future noir'; and the postmodern detective novels of Bret Easton Ellis, William Hjortsberg and Umberto Eco.   There are editorial supplements on James Ellroy's LA Quartet, on black protest in mid-century crime writing and on femmes fatales in the hard-boiled thrillers of the 1950s.  The critical approaches explored include feminist, psychoanalytic, historicist and deconstructive.

NEW ~ Feb 2005: 21st-Century Crime  - containing interviews with Ian Rankin, Jack O'Connell, Jason Starr and Charlie Stella; reviews of the noir crime novels of Charlotte Carter, Jason Starr, Charlie Stella, Kevin Wignall, Charlie Williams and Allan Guthrie; and several review articles - 'Past Crimes', 'Goodfellas and Party Monsters', 'Book to Film and Back', 'Nightmare Alley' and lots more.

NEW   ~  July 2005:  Summer Special: Postmodern and Future Noir - articles on Paul Auster, Bret Easton Ellis, Denis Johnson, Philip K. Dick, Marge Piercy, Joanna Russ, Jack Womack and others - as well as a number of sci fi films, including Blade Runner, The Fly, and Eve of Destruction.

Sections of the Crime Fiction Site

Victorian detective fiction

The new editor of Crimeculture's section on Victorian Detective Fiction is Christopher Pittard, University of Exeter. He discusses the emergence of the detective story as a distinct genre in the nineteenth century, taking in the work of a large range of writers, including Vidocq, William Russell, Poe, Dickens, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Wilkie Collins, Fergus Hume, Conan Doyle, Arthur Morrison, Grant Allen and L T Meade.

Classic detective fiction

An overview of the origins and development of classic detective fiction, at present providing brief discussions of the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, G.K. Chesterton, Arthur Morrison and R. Austin Freeman, and of the novels of the 'Queens of Crime' (Christie, Sayers, Allingham).

American hard-boiled crime fiction

An introduction to the growth of hard-boiled crime fiction in the 1920s and 1930s, with a brief discussion of the historical background and sections on Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Horace McCoy, James M. Cain, W.R. Burnett and Paul Cain.

The era of paperback originals

A brief discussion of the post-World War Two American paperback boom, and of the influence of McCarthyism in 'the paranoid fifties'; amongst the writers included in this section are Mickey Spillane, David Goodis, Gil Brewer, Leigh Brackett and Jim Thompson.

 

Supplementary articles ~

Black Protest in the Mid-Century American Crime Novel   & 

Fatal Women in the Hard-Boiled Fifties

French Crime Fiction

We are delighted to welcome Sue Neale to Crimeculture as the editor of a new section on French crime fiction, from Vidocq to Daniel Pennac and Fred Vargas.  This is our first foray into European writing, and we would be very pleased to have offers of further articles or sections on non-Anglo-American crime fiction.

Brit grit

An introduction to British crime fiction outside the tradition of the classic detective story, starting with Greene and Ambler in the 1930s, and going on to glance at post-World War Two 'mushroom publishing', at Ted Lewis and Get Carter, and at the 'New Wave' British crime writing that has flourished since the 1980s.

American crime writing 1970-2000

An introduction to American crime writing of the past three decades, summarizing key themes in contemporary American noir; amongst writers included are James Ellroy, Edward Bunker, Geroge V. Higgins, Loren Estleman, James Lee Burke, James Crumley, Walter Mosley, Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen

Supplementary articles ~ 

Katharine Horsley and Lee Horsley, Mères Fatales: Maternal Guilt in the Noir Crime Novel (available at online site of Modern Fiction Studies 45.2, Summer 1999).

Lee Horsley, Founding Fathers: 'Genealogies of Violence' in James Ellroy's L.A. Quartet

Graphic Crime Fiction

Our Graphic Crime Fiction editor, Arthur Fried of Plymouth State University, has added to the site a detailed discussion of 'Crime Fiction in Comic Strips, Comic Books and Graphic Novels'.

 

 

Crimeculture and Noir Originals are pleased to announce the launch of PULP ORIGINALS  ~  a site making available in e-book form some of the very best mid-century American crime novels.  Our introductory offer is Harry Whittington's The Devil Wears Wings; our January 2004 offer, James McKimmey's Squeeze Play. NEW: a Day Keene double.

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