front cover of Boys From Grover Avenue
Boys From Grover Avenue
Ed Mcbain's 87th Precinct Novels
George N. Dove
University of Wisconsin Press, 1985
Ed McBain is a master of tone. He turns his material just a little off-axis. George Dove’s study of McBain’s imaginary city is both insightful and realistic. He gets at the heart of this major writer of police procedurals by examining the geography, the day-to-day happenings, and literary quality.
[more]

logo for University of Wisconsin Press
Cops and Constables
American and British Fictional Policemen
Edited by Earl F. Bargainnier and George N. Dove
University of Wisconsin Press, 1986
In both British and American detective fiction the police detective has emerged as a fictional protagonist. However, the American policemen have not achieved the prominence of their British counterparts. The thirteen essays in this volume indicate some of the principle elements which appear again and again in both British and American police procedurals.
[more]

front cover of DETECTING THE NATION
DETECTING THE NATION
FICTIONS OF DETECTION AND THE IMPERIAL VENTURE
CAROLINE REITZ
The Ohio State University Press, 2004
In Detecting the Nation, Reitz argues that detective fiction was essential both to public acceptance of the newly organized police force in early Victorian Britain and to acclimating the population to the larger venture of the British Empire. In doing so, Reitz challenges literary-historical assumptions that detective fiction is a minor domestic genre that reinforces a distinction between metropolitan center and imperial periphery. Rather, Reitz argues, nineteenth-century detective fiction helped transform the concept of an island kingdom to that of a sprawling empire; detective fiction placed imperialism at the center of English identity by recasting what had been the suspiciously un-English figure of the turn-of-the-century detective as the very embodiment of both English principles and imperial authority. She supports this claim through reading such masters of the genre as Godwin, Dickens, Collins, and Doyle in relation to narratives of crime and empire such as James Mill's History of British India, narratives about Thuggee, and selected writings of Kipling and Buchan. Detective fiction and writings more specifically related to the imperial project, such as political tracts and adventure stories, were inextricably interrelated during this time.
[more]

front cover of H.R.F. Keating
H.R.F. Keating
Post-Colonial Detection, A Critical Study
Meera Tamaya
University of Wisconsin Press, 1993
In Keating’s novels, set in India, the bumbling, but always human, Inspector Ghote manages to solve crimes with a post-colonial mix of inherited Scotland Yard/Holmesian deductive methods and his understanding of his native country’s culture. This book is based on the premise that successful sleuths have much in common with cultural anthropologists—indeed the latter have often been termed detectives of cultures. Keating’s Ghote novels are in the tradition of Tony Hillerman’s Navajo Indian mysteries, and James McClure’s South African novels, which serve up the human, experiential aspects of the cultural and ethnic conflicts that newspapers miss.
[more]

front cover of Places for Dead Bodies
Places for Dead Bodies
By Gary J. Hausladen
University of Texas Press, 2000

From Tony Hillerman's Navajo Southwest to Martin Cruz Smith's Moscow, an exotic, vividly described locale is one of the great pleasures of many murder mysteries. Indeed, the sense of place, no less than the compelling character of the detective, is often what keeps authors writing and readers reading a particular series of mystery novels.

This book investigates how "police procedural" murder mysteries have been used to convey a sense of place. Gary Hausladen delves into the work of more than thirty authors, including Tony Hillerman, Martin Cruz Smith, James Lee Burke, David Lindsey, P. D. James, and many others. Arranging the authors by their region of choice, he discusses police procedurals set in America, the United Kingdom and Ireland, Europe, Moscow, Asia, and selected locales in other parts of the world, as well as in historical places ranging from the Roman Empire to turn-of-the-century Cairo.

[more]

logo for University of Wisconsin Press
The Police Procedural
George N. Dove
University of Wisconsin Press, 1982
In the late 1940s and early 1950s a new kind of detective story appeared on the scene. This was a story in which the mystery is solved by regular police detectives, usually working in teams and using ordinary police routines. This kind of narrative is customarily called the "police procedural" story. And it is the subject of this book. Though there has been numberless writers of these stories, there has never been a book of criticism before.
[more]

logo for University of Wisconsin Press
Spirit of Australia
The Crime Fiction of Arthur W. Upfield
Smith
University of Wisconsin Press, 1988
In the world of crime fiction, Arthur W. Upfield stands among the giants. His detective-inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, is one of the most memorable of all crime fighters. Upfield was an independent, fiercely self-assertive ex-Britisher, who loved Australia, especially the Outback. In many ways Upfield became Outback Australia—the “Spirit of Australia.”


Library of Congress subject headings for this publication:
Upfield, Arthur William, -- 1888-1964 -- Criticism and interpretation.
Detective and mystery stories, Australian -- History and criticism.
Bonaparte, Napoleon, Inspector (Fictitious character)
National characteristics, Australian, in literature.
Australia -- In literature.
Police in literature.
Crime in literature.
[more]

front cover of Tony Hillerman's Navajoland
Tony Hillerman's Navajoland
Hideouts, Haunts, and Havens in the Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee Mysteries
Laurance D. Linford
University of Utah Press, 2011

Tony Hillerman is beloved for his novels of intrigue in the American Southwest. In Tony Hillerman’s Navajoland, Laurance Linford takes readers on a journey through the Four Corners region to the haunts of Hillerman’s characters. Offered in encyclopedic form, each entry gives the common name of a particular location, the Navajo name and history, and a description of the location’s significance in various Hillerman novels. An understanding of the Navajo names and their relations to the landscape will lend a new dimension to the characters and events Tony Hillerman created.

This expanded third edition is updated to include all 72 sites from Hillerman’s final and location-rich novel, The Shape Shifter.
[more]

front cover of Tony Hillerman's Navajoland
Tony Hillerman's Navajoland
Hideouts, Haunts, and Havens in the Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee Mysteries
Laurance D. Linford
University of Utah Press, 2005


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter