Awards

• Short-listed for Crimefest H. R. F. Keating Award 2016
• Shortlisted for Crimefest H. R. F. Keating Award 2016.

Overview

For most of the twentieth century, the private eye dominated crime fiction and film, a lone figure fighting for justice, often in opposition to the official representatives of law and order. More recently, however, the police have begun to take center stage—as exemplified by the runaway success of TV police procedurals like Law and Order. In Crime Uncovered: Detective, Barry Forshaw offers an exploration of some of the most influential and popular fictional police detectives in the history of the genre. Taking readers into the worlds of such beloved authors as P. D. James, Henning Mankell, Jo Nesbø, Ian Rankin, and Håkan Nesser, this book zeroes in on the characteristics that define the iconic characters they created, discussing how they relate to their national and social settings, questions of class, and to the criminals they relentlessly pursue. Showing how the role of the authority figure has changed—and how each of these writers creates characters who work both within and against the strictures of official investigations—the book shows how creators cleverly subvert expectations of both police procedure and the crime genre itself. Written by a leading expert in the field and drawn from interviews with the featured authors, Crime Uncovered: Detectivewill thrill the countless fans of Inspector Rebus, Harry Hole, Adam Dalgliesh, and the other enduring police detectives who define the genre.

Full Product Details

9781783205219

Table of Contents

Reviews

Barry Forshaw is a leading expert on crime fiction and film and the author of a number of books on the genre.

After a brisk introduction, this volume, edited by Forshaw, offers insights into a variety of twentieth- and twenty-first century iterations of the form. Crime fiction, he argues, is a genre that, while necessarily prescriptive, offers the possibility of 'acute social critique.' Although the surface pleasures of the detective story are considerable, the writers whom Forshaw has enlisted are at their most intriguing when discussing subtext. . . . The figure of the detective, a literary staple for more than a century-and-a-half, remains complex, shifting and fiercely modem. As Forshaw's book makes plain, it still has much to offer in its curious combination of the comforting and confrontational. --Times Literary Supplement

'Detective is a book of commissioned essays on two themes: the growing international reach of the genre, and the propensity of it to reflect the social conditions of its time. In his introduction, Barry Forshaw asks what is the source of the enduring popularity of detective fiction. He finds the answer in its ability to palliate the chaos of an unstable world [7] which drives the other part of his answer, the growing international interest in the genre.' -- Charles Brownson, Cercles 'Although the surface pleasures of the detective story are considerable, the writers whom Forshaw has enlisted are at their most intriguing when discussing subtext.' -- Jonathon Barnes, TLS 'Readily accessible for a readership well acquainted with crime fiction through reading for pleasure.' -- Sarah Ward, Crimepieces

Author Information

Barry Forshaw is a leading expert on crime fiction and film and the author of a number of books on the genre.

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