Detective Fiction

8 Key excerpts on "Detective Fiction"

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  eBook - ePub

  The Technique of the Mystery Story

  • Carolyn Wells(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Mint Editions

    (Publisher)

  VI

  DETECTIVE STORIES

  What Is a Detective Story Rise of the Detective Story The Detective—Fictive and Real Fiction versus Fact The Interest of the Detective Story A Summing Up

  1. What is a Detective Story?

  THE CLASS OF FICTION WHICH we shall group under this head must include all stories where the problem is invented and solved by the author and set forth in such a way as to give an astute reader opportunities for guessing or reasoning out the answer.

  An actual detective need not necessarily figure in the story, but detective work must be done by some of the characters.

  There must be crime or apparent crime or attempted crime. But whether the problem is one of murder, robbery or kidnapping,—whether it be solved by evidence, deduction or a cryptogram,—it is detected, not guessed, and this is the main element in our classification.

  The average or typical Detective Story of today is the detailed narrative of the proceedings of an individual of unusual mental acumen in unraveling a mystery.

  Strictly speaking, a detective is a member of the police organization or of a private detective agency. But for fictional purposes he may be such, or he may be anyone with what is called “detective instinct” or a taste for detective work.

  It appears that in its earliest days the word “detective” meant merely a shadower or follower. A curious old story in Harper’s Magazine for 1870 begins thus:

  The remarkable skill and penetration shown by our modern detectives in “shadowing” suspected persons until sufficient proof has been obtained to warrant their arrest is illustrated by the daily history of crime. By the term “shadowing” is meant that vigilant watch kept upon the culprit by someone who follows him like his own shadow, and to do this successfully indicates no small degree of skill on the part of the “detective.” This last expression recalls to memory some strange facts which came to my knowledge in the early part of my life, and I can never meet the term in print or hear it in conversation without a painful reminiscence.

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  Neo-Victorian Fiction and Historical Narrative

  The Victorians and Us

  • L. Hadley(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  Detective Fiction is characterized by epistemological concerns; indeed, Brian McHale goes so far as to claim that it is ‘the epistemologi- cal genre par excellence’ (p. 6). Raising questions of what we know about the world and the systems by which we acquire that knowledge, detec- tive fiction connects to neo-Victorian fiction’s concern with how we can know, and narrate, the Victorian past. In neo-Victorian detective fic- tion, this interest in the narratives of the past particularly focuses on the issues of evidence, truth and judgement about the past. In Postmodernist L. Hadley, Neo-Victorian Fiction and Historical Narrative © Louisa Hadley 2010 60 Neo-Victorian Fiction and Historical Narrative Fiction (1996), McHale characterizes the transition from modernism to postmodernism as a shift from an epistemological to an ontological dominant, from a concern with questions about modes of knowing to a concern with questions about modes of being. In this account, then, Detective Fiction would seem to be a modernist mode of writing. In recent years, however, there has been an upsurge in novels adopt- ing the conventions of Detective Fiction, not only in genre fiction, where Detective Fiction has remained popular since its inception, but also in literary fictions and especially in postmodern fiction. The emergence of the postmodern detective novel seems to counter McHale’s implication that Detective Fiction is a modernist genre. Perhaps the most famous example of the postmodern detective novel is Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose (1980), which centres around a series of murders that take place in an Italian monastery in the fourteenth century. In an explicit allusion to the most famous of all literary detectives, Eco’s detective is named William of Baskerville. Although Eco’s novel sparked a renewed interest in historical Detective Fictions, not all such texts adopt the attitude of postmodern play that characterized his engagement with history.

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  American TV Detective Dramas

  Serial Investigations

  • Mareike Jenner(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  3 Defining Detection: The Detective Genre

  This chapter frames the analysis of the American television detective drama through genre. It will first give an outline of the relationship between the crime genre and the detective genre, and will then move on to discuss two of the detective genre’s sub-genres: the ‘genius’ detective genre and the police procedural. In the course of outlining and defining the genre, this chapter will also sketch out an understanding of genre as discourse, following the work of Jason Mittell (2004). The discussion of how the genre is understood here serves several purposes. First, the different ways in which the detective genre has been debated in relation to various media makes it necessary to offer a clear terminology for this discussion. Furthermore, as this chapter will show, the definition of the detective genre is complicated by the sub-genre’s relationship with the crime genre. The crime genre describes all texts that feature crime as a dominant part of the narrative (the gangster genre, the serial killer genre, the cop drama, the heist film, the courtroom drama, etc.). It is treated here as an umbrella term or umbrella genre that accommodates a number of sub-genres, as will be discussed in more detail later on. Second, with a prolific genre like the detective genre, which is not exclusive to one media form, it becomes relevant to discuss similarities and differences between versions on television and other media in its aesthetics and narrative structures. These formal aspects and the television genre’s links to the literary genre are discussed throughout this study, but need to be underpinned by clear definitions.

  To briefly define the detective genre, it is understood here as a sub-genre of the crime genre. As self-explanatory as the term ‘crime genre’ seems, there is some confusion over what actually constitutes it. Most approaches to the genre, whether in literature, film or television studies, work with very vague definitions. A common denominator is that a serious crime (or the appearance of one) lies at the centre of the narrative. This inclusive approach to genre has its advantages: it acknowledges the fluidity of any genre definition and can easily deal with generic hybrids like Analyze This (dir. Ramis 1999), which is a gangster film as well as a comedy. But the stories of crime can be told from various angles: The Godfather (dir. Coppola 1972) or L.A. Confidential (dir. Hanson 1997) are not films about ‘a crime’, but tell stories of criminal conspiracies, with the earlier film telling the story from the perspective of the criminal(s). A film like Philadelphia (dir. Demme 1993) deals with the issue of whether a crime has been committed, and parts of the film deal with the investigation of this crime. But the crime is wrongful termination – a serious crime, indeed, but rarely the stuff of crime stories – and the emphasis of the film is on melodrama. Films like Lethal Weapon (dir. Donner 1987) or Tango and Cash (dir. Konchalovskiy 1989) have the investigation of crimes at their centre, but narrative structures, point of view and the moments of ‘spectacle’ are different from those in the other texts. These examples are all from film, but the crime genre becomes even broader with the inclusion of novels ranging from Cop Hater (McBain 1956) to The Firm (Grisham 1991) or The Judge and His Hangman (Dürrenmatt 1951), or television dramas ranging from Murder, She Wrote to The Shield to more melodramatic series like Judging Amy (CBS, 1999–2005). The term ‘crime genre’ is also often used synonymously with its many sub-genres. For example, in an article on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

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  Translation and Genre

  • B. J. Woodstein(Author)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  They have certain expectations and have ideas about the function of the text, and when those expectations are met, potentially also in a way that is aesthetically pleasing, they enjoy the reading experience, while also not having those expectations met can potentially lead to 37 Translation and Genre a stimulating experience too. Worthington writes, ‘Crime fiction is at once deeply conservative in its formulaic conventions and yet potentially radically in its diversity’ (2010, p. ix). Bradford sums up the genre by writing that no matter the subtype, crime fiction is about ‘constantly gathering evidence, attempting to make sense of patently unreal creations – by definition, puzzles – and close the gap between what we think we know and what the next page will tell us’ (2015, pp. 121–2). Given the many subtypes in this genre, it would be useful to think through what characteristics the texts in this field may contain. Palmer suggests that action is a key aspect and that the language usage emphasises the action. He writes that authors ‘dramatize a process’ so that ‘[a]ll actions, however mundane, become part of The Action, however insignificant’ (1979, p. 78). Palmer mentions other critics, who consider crime fiction ‘too corrupt and decadent’ (1979, p. 79), but he argues that a good thriller needs ‘a hero and a conspiracy’ and needs to ‘captur[e] the reader ’ s imagination’ (1979, p. 80). He adds that ‘what is specific to the thriller – what it is that attracts the thriller reader, whether critical or otherwise – is the view of the world that the thriller proposes’ (1979, p. 80). So generally, crime fiction contains action and a puzzle and tells readers something about their society, about ethics and what – or who – is considered ‘good’ versus ‘evil’. The resolution at the end of a crime work shows the values that a society holds dear. Porter writes that popular literature, such as crime fiction, serves as ‘a reflector and barometer of the society’ s ideological norms.

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  The Contemporary Academic Mystery Novel

  A Study in Genre

  • Elzbieta Perkowska-Gawlik, Ludmila Gruszewska-Blaim(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Peter Lang Group

    (Publisher)

  The academic mystery novel as Detective Fiction 32 psychological dramas� The wit of the detective ensures that each entangle- ment of even a minor puzzle brings the characters to a happy ending, i�e� most of them regain the kind of life they used to lead before the murder or series of murders occurred� For many readers, classical detective novels are like fairy tales for adults� Their highly formulaic nature provides a shelter from trials and tribulations of everyday reality� Adults, unlike children, assert that once they know the solution they cannot enjoy reading the same story over and over again� However, they fail to realise that in fact they indulge in reading and interpreting the familiar formula of the classical detective story in disguise of yet another criminal conundrum� Those who do recognise the pattern and nevertheless cannot or do not want to escape its lure, call it an addiction� 1.2 Playing with(in) patterns: Metafictional games in the academic mystery novel Like other aesthetic concepts, “metafiction” makes unavoidable the problem of all concepts, that they do not precede, logically or historically, their application� R�M� Berry, “Metafiction” According to the most basic definition metafiction is fiction about fiction� 9 A widely known example of novels which overtly display their fictionality is John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969), which “adroitly pinches the reader[s] into awareness that the object in [their] hand[s] is a novel” (Kronik 52), deterring their immersion into the world presented by the text� “The self-reflexivity of the narratives draws attention to the exis- tence of an author, a producer, something which many writers have tried to hide in order to give their works a semblance of universality and uncon- tested truth” (Hansson 17)� The readers realise that the author/narrator deliberately lays bare the process of

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  Feminist Popular Fiction

  • M. Makinen(Author)
  • 2001(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  Contemporary women have added pornography, rape and sexual violence to examine the gender issues of victimisation. Detective Fiction, they argue, is a literature of transgression and, with the amateur sleuths, of Detective Fiction 107 ambivalence to law and order. Closed communities have allowed the exploration of complex relationships between women, extending the community in radical directions. Women have always been attracted to crime writing because its concerns and conflicts are particularly relevant to women. Four essays were published in 1990, addressing the question of femi- nist appropriation. Maggie Humm’s ‘Feminist Detective Fiction’ 44 argued that feminist detective writers were questioning the limits of women’s contemporary experience by questioning the limitations of the genre. Using Mary Douglas’ anthropological work on boundaries to codify gender, Humm argues that where the traditional Detective Fiction polices the boundaries to expel deviants and reinforce the moral consensus, feminist Detective Fiction crosses the boundaries, by connecting sexual politics to economic and patriarchal repression. While their books reject linearity and the individual scopic gaze, their detectives act more collectively, as mediators between groups, and focus on more domestic issues, rather than the public. The feminist writers therefore challenge the conventions of containment and displacement. Maureen T. Reddy’s ‘The Feminist Counter-Tradition in Crime: Cross, Grafton, Paretsky and Wilson’ 45 continued to detail how femi- nist writers create a counter-tradition. Feminist ideology informs the source of the detective’s authority and power, while corruption is linked to capitalist patriarchy. Truth is shown to be relative, order is often the source of the crimes, and relationships are often seen as more important than abstract justice.

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  Narratives of Enclosure in Detective Fiction

  The Locked Room Mystery

  • M. Cook(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  Poe’s structure for the detective story became one of the earliest exam- ples of setting a narrative rubric for a popular genre. Having clearly demarked his creation as one based on ratiocination, the progression of a series of logical deductions based on clues, what followed was an absolute concentration on the resolution of a mystery from inception to solution. As Robert Champigny has remarked, ‘A narrative that attracts the reader’s attention to some undetermined events but avoids deter- mining them at the end is not a mystery story.’ 14 This binds the detective story inextricably with hermeneutics. Champigny’s definition relies on a closed narrative formula, one which permits the slow release of the truth so that, in the investigation of the crime, the fractured dissemination of hermeneutics is transmitted in the form of clues. Only when all the clues are aggregated can the true picture of what really happened be revealed. Poe and the Detective Story Narrative 7 This view is endorsed by Patricia Merivale, who has pointed out that the idea of closure and the process of investigation are elements leading to a ‘[s]olution, which equals the restoring, through the power of reason- ing, a criminally disrupted but inherently viable Order, which equals Narrative Closure. “Closure” is, to simplify, the sort of conclusion by which the preceding narrative comes, in hindsight, to “make sense” and thus, reciprocally, to make the conclusion itself seem inevitable.’ 15 This intense focus on a progressive narrative necessitates a structure which encourages the exclusion of all material that does not contribute to its central proposition. But the notion of narrative closure only takes the analysis of Detective Fiction so far.

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  A Companion to Crime Fiction

  • Charles J. Rzepka, Lee Horsley, Charles J. Rzepka, Lee Horsley(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  Crime and detective literature for children allows for different possibilities in detec- tion and plotting, especially in cases where the detective is a child, or part of a group of children, but it shares common origins with the genre as a whole. Most studies of children’s literature, including Peter Hunt’s An Introduction to Children’s Literature (1994), identify a period in the mid-nineteenth century in which children’s literature began to move away from didacticism and moralizing and towards entertainment and adventure. This took place in the 1840s, at much the same time as Detective Fiction for adults was beginning to gain popularity among readers in the fast-growing cities of Europe and the United States. Dennis Butts (1997) argues that in the 1840s adventure and fantasy stories began to take over from religious and moral tales as suitable material for children, partly as a form of escape from the turmoil and uncertainties of life in the early nineteenth century, but also because attitudes towards children were changing: The emerging children’s literature, with its growing tolerance of children’s playful behaviour, its recognition of the importance of feelings as opposed to reliance upon 322 Christopher Routledge reason and repression, and its relaxation of didacticism because it was less certain of dogmas, all reflect what was happening in the world beyond children’s books. It is surely remarkable that, whereas fairy tales had to fight for recognition in the 1820s, no fewer than four different translations of Hans Andersen’s stories for children should have been published in England in the year of 1846 alone. (Butts 1997: 159–60) Elements of mystery, crime, and detection have long been important features of stories enjoyed by young readers.

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