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The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and Their Creators
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The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and Their Creators
736eBookePub edition (ePub edition)
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Overview
In the first major history of crime fiction in fifty years, The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and their Creators traces the evolution of the genre from the eighteenth century to the present, offering brand-new perspective on the world’s most popular form of fiction.
Author Martin Edwards is a multi-award-winning crime novelist, the President of the Detection Club, archivist of the Crime Writers’ Association and series consultant to the British Library’s highly successful series of crime classics, and therefore uniquely qualified to write this book. He has been a widely respected genre commentator for more than thirty years, winning the CWA Diamond Dagger for making a significant contribution to crime writing in 2020, when he also compiled and published Howdunit: A Masterclass in Crime Writing by Members of the Detection Club and the novel Mortmain Hall. His critically acclaimed The Golden Age of Murder (Collins Crime Club, 2015) was a landmark study of Detective Fiction between the wars.
The Life of Crime is the result of a lifetime of reading and enjoying all types of crime fiction, old and new, from around the world. In what will surely be regarded as his magnum opus, Martin Edwards has thrown himself undaunted into the breadth and complexity of the genre to write an authoritative – and readable – study of its development and evolution. With crime fiction being read more widely read than ever around the world, and with individual authors increasingly the subject of extensive academic study, his expert distillation of more than two centuries of extraordinary books and authors – from the tales of E.T.A. Hoffmann to the novels of Patricia Cornwell – into one coherent history is an extraordinary feat and makes for compelling reading.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780008192457 |
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Publisher: | HarperCollins Publishers |
Publication date: | 05/26/2022 |
Sold by: | HarperCollins Publishers |
Format: | eBook |
Pages: | 736 |
Sales rank: | 826,393 |
File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
![About The Author](http://img.images-bn.com/static/redesign/srcs/images/grey-box.png?v11.9.4)
Martin Edwards has published twenty crime novels, including series set in Liverpool and the Lake District. He has won the CWA Short Story Dagger and CWA Margery Allingham Prize, and his book The Golden Age of Murder won the Edgar, Agatha, Macavity and H.R.F.Keating awards. Martin is consultant for the British Library's Classic Crime series, archivist of the CWA and President of the Detection Club. He has edited 30 anthologies, published about 60 short stories, and written seven other non-fiction books.
Martin Edwards is an award-winning crime novelist whose Lake District Mysteries have been optioned by ITV. Elected to the Detection Club in 2008, he became the first Archivist of the Club, and is also Archivist of the Crime Writers’ Association. Renowned as the leading expert on the history of Golden Age detective fiction, he won the Crimefest Mastermind Quiz three times, and possesses one of Britain’s finest collections of Golden Age novels.
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
1 Revolution: Origins 9
2 Mystery and Imagination: Edgar Allan Poe and the first detective stories 20
3 Guilty Secrets: Sensation novels 29
4 Detective Fever: Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, and early detective fiction 37
5 Poacher Turned Gamekeeper: The French Revolution: Vidocq, Gaboriau and their worldwide influence 49
6 The Great Detective: Sherlock Holmes 58
7 Rogues' Gallery: Raffles and other villains 71
8 The Nature of Evil: G. K. Chesterton and faith and sin in detective fiction 81
9 Plot Minds: Marie Belloc Lowndes and Edwardian-era detective fiction 92
10 The Science of Detection: R. Austin Freeman and scientific mysteries 103
11 Had-I-But-Known: Mary Roberts Rinehart and 'women in jeopardy' novels 116
12 War and Peace: The First World War and detective fiction 127
13 Treacherous Impulses: Early spy fiction 138
14 The Mistress of Deception: Agatha Christie 149
15 American Tragedy: Van Dine and the American Golden Age 161
16 Superfluous Women: Queens of crime 174
17 Challenging the Reader: Detection and game-playing 187
18 Locked Rooms: 'Impossible crime' mysteries 199
19 The Long Arm of the Law: Early police stories 212
20 Blood-Simple: Dashiell Hammett 223
21 Murder and its Motives: True crime 234
22 Twists of Fate: Francis Iles and ironic crime fiction 245
23 The Sound of Mystery: Radio mysteries 259
24 In Lonely Rooms: Raymond Chandler 270
25 Brothers in Crime: Patrick and Bruce Hamilton 281
26 Cracks in the Wall: Georges Simenon and European crime fiction 291
27 Sensation in Court: Legal mysteries 304
28 California Dreaming: Crime writers and Hollywood 314
29 Carnival of Crime: Mystery and the macabre 326
30 Waking Nightmares: Noir fiction 336
31 Dagger of the Mind: Casebook novels 347
32 Whose Body?: Whowasdunins: mysteries about the victim's identity 355
33 Private Wounds: Transitioning from the Golden Age 365
34 Out of this World: Traditional detective fiction evolves in the United States 375
35 Perfect Murders: Crime and the end of empire 387
36 Mind Games: Post-war psychological suspense 398
37 Deep Water: Patricia Highsmith 410
38 Forking Paths: Borges and postmodernism 418
39 Bloody Murder: Julian Symons and crime fiction criticism 429
40 People with Ghosts: Post-war private investigators and the legacy of Vietnam 443
41 Killing Jokes: Comedy and crime 454
42 Literary Agents: Post-war spy fiction 466
43 Nerve: Adventure novels and thrillers 480
44 Outsider in Amsterdam: Dutch crime 490
45 Whodunwhat?: Theatrical murder 502
46 Black and Blue: British police fiction 511
47 Home Discomforts: Domestic suspense 522
48 Mystery Games: East Asian detective fiction 533
49 Early Graves: Difference and diversity 545
50 A Suitable Job for a Woman: Women writing about private investigators 560
51 A Feeling for Snow: Scandinavian crime writing 571
52 Fatal Inversions: Ruth Rendell and modern psychological suspense 581
53 Dark Places: American police fiction 591
54 Long Shadows: Historical crime 601
55 A Taste for Death: P. D. James and the truth about human character and experience 613
Select Bibliography 623
Acknowledgements 644
Index of Titles 646
Index of Names 688
Subject Index 716