Watching the Detectives

In this collection of essays, a number of critics offer commentary on the crime fiction genre, exploring the kinds of pleasure it offers. Looking under the attractive surface of these books, the contributors discover a number of complex issues.

Inhalt
Irony and justice in Patricia Highsmith, Ian A.Bell; "This Shitty Urban Machine Humanized..." - the urban crime novel and the novels of William McIlvanney, Simon Dentith; the voices of George V Higgins, Graham Daldry; investigating women - the female sleuth after feminism, Lyn Pykett; the phantom at the limits of criminology, Richard W.Ireland; "real" detectives and "fictional" criminals, John Simons; unravelling a web - writer versus reader in Edgar Allan Poe's tales of detection, F.C.Lewis; Chandler's cannibalism, Maldwyn Mills; "home" is where the hearth is - the Englishness of Agatha Christie's Marple novels, Anna-Marie Taylor; "Loving and Lying" - multiple identity in John Le Carre's "A Perfect Spy", Tony Barley; radical thrillers, Stephen Knight.