Description: This collection of essays by leading scholars insists on a larger recognition of the importance and diversity of crime fiction in U.S. literary traditions. The volume emphasizes American crime fiction's inquiry into the nature of democratic society and its exploration of injustices based on race, class, and/or gender that are specifically l
Review Quotes:
"The collection would appeal to those specialising in American popular culture or American modernism. It would be of particular interest for those working on Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, and the postmodern author Cormac McCarthy or those working on the masters of the crime fiction genre such as Hammett, Chandler, Macdonald, and Elmore Leonard. The collection as a whole expresses the importance of crime within American literature and the imaginary line dividing genre and literary fiction."
- Anna Kirsch, The International Crime Fiction Association