Key Concepts in Crime Fiction

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

An insight into a popular yet complex genre that has developed over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The volume explores the contemporary anxieties to which crime fiction responds, along with society's changing conceptions of crime and criminality. The book covers texts, contexts and criticism in an accessible and user-friendly format.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• General Editor's Preface (p. viii)
• General Introduction (p. ix)
• 1 Contexts: History, Politics, Culture (p. 1)
• Introduction (p. 1)
• Cities and urbanisation (p. 2)
• Crime and criminality (p. 9)
• Detectives and detection (p. 15)
• Evidence (p. 33)
• Gender and sexuality (p. 41)
• The law (p. 53)
• Police and policing (p. 61)
• Race, colour and creed (p. 72)
• 2 Texts: Themes, Issues, Concepts (p. 88)
• Introduction (p. 88)
• American crime fiction (p. 90)
• Children's crime fiction (p. 97)
• Early criminography (p. 103)
• Feminist crime fiction (p. 108)
• Golden-Age crime fiction (p. 115)
• Hard-boiled detective fiction (p. 121)
• Historical crime fiction (p. 130)
• The police procedural (p. 140)
• 3 Criticism: Approaches, Theory, Practice (p. 152)
• Introduction (p. 152)
• Cultural materialism (p. 160)
• Feminism (p. 165)
• Postcolonialism (p. 170)
• Postmodernism (p. 176)
• Chronology (p. 182)
• Index (p. 192)