Contemporary American Crime Fiction

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.

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

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

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Contemporary American Crime Fiction

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials