There are few figures as captivating as the antihero: the character we can’t help but root for, even as we turn away in revulsion from many of the things they do. What is it that draws us to characters like Breaking Bad’s Walter White, Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley, and Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander even as we decry the trail of destruction they leave in their wake?

Crime Uncovered: Antihero tackles that question and more. Mixing the popular and iconic, contemporary and ancient, the book explores the place and appeal of the antihero. Using figures from books, TV, film, and more, including such up-to-the-minute examples as True Detective’s Rust Cole, the book places the antihero’s actions within the society he or she is rejecting, showing how expectations and social and familial structures create the backdrop against which the antihero’s posture becomes compelling. Featuring interviews with genre masters James Ellroy and Paul Johnston, Crime Uncovered: Antiherois an accessible, engaging analysis of what drives us to embrace those characters who acknowledge—or even flaunt—the dark side we all have somewhere deep inside.

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.

The private investigator is one of the most enduring characters within crime fiction. From Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade— the hard-boiled loner trawling the mean streets—to Agatha Christie’s Captain Hastings—the genteel companion in greener surrounds—the P. I. has taken on any number of guises. In Crime Uncovered: Private Investigator, editors Alistair Rolls and Rachel Franks dive deep into crime literature and culture, challenging many of the assumptions we make about the hardy P. I.

Assembling a cast of notable crime fiction experts, including Stephen Knight and Carolyn Beasley, the book covers characters from the whole world of international noir—Giorgio Scerbanenco’s Duca Lambert, Léo Malet’s Nestor Burma, and many more. Including essays on the genealogy and emergence of the protagonist in nineteenth-century fiction; interviews with crime writers Leigh Redhead, Nick Quantrill, and Fernando Lalana; and analyses of the transatlantic exchanges that helped to develop public perception of a literary icon, Crime Uncovered: Private Investigator will redefine what we think we know about the figure of the P. I.

Rolls and Franks have engaged here the tension between the popular and scholarly that is inherent in any critical examination of a literary type, along the way unraveling the mystery of the alluring, enigmatic private investigator. Crime Uncovered: Private Investigator will be a handy companion for any crime fiction fan.