The Place It Was Done: Location and Community in Contemporary American and British Crime Fiction

by Sárka Bubíková, Olga Roebuck

Overview

Locations play an important role in every story, but in British and American contemporary crime fiction, they are often inextricable from the narrative. This work examines the city, the countryside and the wilderness as places ripe with literary significance and symbolism.

Using works by authors like Robert Galbraith, Ian Rankin, Denise Mina, Chris Brookmyre, John Knox, Peter Robinson, Linda Barnes, Dana Stabenow, Nevada Barr, Les Roberts, Philip R. Craig, and others, this work offers a fresh assessment of how place and space are employed in contemporary crime fiction. Highlighted are similarities and differences among the authors' approaches to setting, and how they relate to the history of crime fiction and to the general literary representation of place. Going beyond mere literary geography, the book engages the sociocultural dimensions of the communities affected by crime. Chapters also analyze the reader's perception, recognition and appreciation of place and community.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476649054
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	03/03/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	193
File size:	4 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Šárka Bubíková is an associate professor of American literature at the University of Pardubice, Czech Republic. The author of two books and a co-author of two edited volumes, she also writes fiction. Olga Roebuck is an assistant professor at the University of Pardubice, Czech Republic. She specializes in cultural identities in contemporary Scottish fiction and crime fiction.
Šarka Bubikova is an associate professor of American literature at the University of Pardubice, Czech Republic. The author of two books and a co-author of two edited volumes, she also writes fiction.
Olga Roebuck is an assistant professor at the University of Pardubice, Czech Republic. She specializes in cultural identities in contemporary Scottish fiction and crime fiction.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
Chapter One—The City
1.1. The Changing Role of the Urban Setting
1.1.1. Robert Galbraith’s London
1.1.2. Ian Rankin’s and Christopher Brookmyre’s Edinburgh
1.1.3. Denise Mina’s Glasgow
1.1.4. Joseph Knox’s Manchester
1.2. City as a Repository of Memories
1.3. Following and Mobility
1.4. American Urban Setting: City Domesticated
1.4.1. Sara Paretsky’s Chicago
1.4.2. Linda Barnes’s Boston
1.4.3. Les Roberts’s Cleveland
1.4.4. Laura Lippman’s Baltimore
1.5. City as a Temporal Entity: Memory and Urban Change
1.6. Walks, Drives and Surveillance
Chapter Two—The Country
2.1. British Idyllic Countryside Questioned
2.2. The Idyllic Countryside of the Amish Farmland
2.3. Ambiguous Countryside: Martha’s Vineyard
Chapter Three—The Wilderness
3.1. Wilderness as Literary Environment
3.1.1. The Southwest
3.1.2. Alaska
3.2. Outsiders in Wilderness: Tourists and Pets
3.3. Wilderness as a Literary Topos
3.4. Wilderness as Metaphysical and Mythological Landscapes
Chapter Notes
Works Cited
Index

Editorial Reviews

...a complex, thorough, and insightful research asserting that traditional setting remains an important site of crime.”—Alena Smieskova, associate professor of English and American Studies, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia

From the Publisher