Contemporary American Crime Fiction

by Bertens, Hans; D'haen, Theo

• ISBN13: 9780333674550
• ISBN10: 0333674553
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-12-14
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

This accessible, lively, and informative study gives a clear, comprehensive overview of recent trends in American crime fiction. Building on a discussion of the immediate predecessors, Bertens and D'haen focus on the work of popular and award-winning authors of the last 15 years. Particular attention is given to writers who have reworked established conventions and explored new directions, especially women and those from ethnic minorities.

Author Biography

Hans Bertens is Professor of Comparative Literature at Utrecht University. Theo D'haen is Professor of English and American Literature at Leiden University.

Table of Contents

List of Writers and Detectives	vii
Preface	ix
Introduction	1	(16)
The Old Guard in the mid-1990s: Muller, Grafton, and Paretsky	17	(22)
Marcia Muller and Sharon McCone	18	(6)
Sue Grafton and Kinsey Millhone	24	(5)
Sara Paretsky and V.I. Warshawski	29	(10)
The Old Guard Continued: Kaminsky, Parker, and Block	39	(19)
Stuart Kaminsky and Porfiry Rostnikov	40	(3)
Robert B. Parker and Spenser	43	(7)
Lawrence Block and Matt Scudder	50	(8)
The Personal and the Regional: New Forms of Authenticity in Female Crime Writing	58	(19)
Private matters	58	(9)
Regionalism	67	(10)
Three Pictures from the Institution: Forrest, Barr, and Hightower	77	(19)
Katherine V. Forrest's lesbian cop	79	(5)
Nevada Barr's Park Ranger	84	(7)
Lynn S. Hightower's single parent	91	(5)
Los Angeles Police Department: Ellroy's and Connelly's Police Procedurals	96	(17)
James Ellroy	96	(9)
Michael Connelly	105	(8)
Private Investigation in the 1990s	113	(16)
Marlowe at the end of the millennium	113	(5)
America as grotesque	118	(4)
On the ball	122	(2)
High jinks in Trenton	124	(5)
The `English Tradition' in Contemporary American Crime Fiction	129	(17)
Martha Grimes, Long Piddleton, and the twelfth Viscount Ardry	130	(4)
Elizabeth George, the eighth Earl of Asherton, and Acton, North London	134	(12)
Historical Mysteries	146	(14)
Ancient Rome	149	(2)
Historical New York	151	(2)
New England	153	(1)
Seneca Falls and the rights of women	154	(2)
New York revisited	156	(4)
In Waco's Wake: Patricia Cornwell and Mary Willis Walker	160	(15)
Mary Willis Walker	161	(8)
Patricia Cornwell	169	(6)
`Other' Detectives: the Emergence of Ethnic Crime Writing	175	(15)
Contemporary ethnic detectives	176	(2)
African American crime writing: Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins	178	(5)
Dale Furutani's Ken Tanaka	183	(2)
Twice marginalized: ethnicity and sexuality	185	(3)
The past revisited: Robert Skinner's Skin Deep, Blood Red	188	(2)
Black Female Crime Writing	190	(16)
South and north: Barbara Neely's Blanche	191	(5)
Middle class detection in Sacramento	196	(5)
Reunion in Blue River	201	(2)
Black female PI in Newark	203	(3)
The Persistence of Gender: the Private Investigators of S.J. Rozan	206	(9)
Primary Bibliography	215	(7)
Select Secondary Bibliography	222	(3)
Index	225