Description: The Crime Fiction Handbook presents a comprehensive introduction to the origins, development, and cultural significance of the crime fiction genre, focusing mainly on American British, and Scandinavian texts.
- Provides an accessible and well-written introduction to the genre of crime fiction
- Moves with ease between a general overview of the genre and useful theoretical approaches
- Includes a close analysis of the key texts in the crime fiction tradition
- Identifies what makes crime fiction of such cultural importance and illuminates the social and political anxieties at its heart.
- Shows the similarities and differences between British, American, and Scandinavian crime fiction traditions
Review Quotes:
"Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty." (Choice, 1 September 2013)
"Messent's readings are always perceptive and his book offers an excellent introduction to a diverse genre." (The Guardian, 8 March 2013)
"Those interested in the more arcane byways of crime fiction will find this concise but intelligent volume invaluable, with its academic (but accessible) analyses of some of the key texts in the genre. What is perhaps the most valuable aspect of the book is the fact that Peter Messent has managed to unearth new insights into this much written-about subject -- no easy task in the 21st century, when a considerable amount of analysis of the field (including, in a modest way, by this writer) is so endemic." (Crime Time, 27 February 2013)
"...at a stroke this volume joins the library of key texts in the field." (Crime Time, February 2013)"... a good introduction to a prolific genre." (Times Literary Supplement, March 2013)