Crime Fiction / John Scaggs
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running head recto i CRIME FICTION Crime Fiction provides a lively introduction to what is both a wide- ranging and a hugely popular literary genre. Using examples from a variety of novels, short stories, films and television series, John Scaggs: • presents a concise history of crime fiction – from biblical narratives to James Ellroy – broadening the genre to include revenge tragedy and the gothic novel • explores the key sub-genres of crime fiction, such as ‘Mystery and Detective Fiction’, ‘The Hard-Boiled Mode’, ‘The Police Procedural’ and ‘Historical Crime Fiction’ • locates texts and their recurring themes and motifs in a wider social and historical context • outlines the various critical concepts that are central to the study of crime fiction, including gender studies, narrative theory and film theory • considers contemporary television series such as C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation alongside the ‘classic’ whodunnits of Agatha Christie Accessible and clear, this comprehensive overview is the essential guide for all those studying crime fiction and concludes with a look at future directions for the genre in the twenty-first century. John Scaggs is a Lecturer in the Department of English at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick, Ireland. THE NEW CRITICAL IDIOM Series Editor: John Drakakis, University of Stirling The New Critical Idiom is an invaluable series of introductory guides to today’s critical terminology. Each book: . provides a handy, explanatory guide to the use (and abuse) of the term . offers an original and distinctive overview by a leading literary and cultural critic . relates the term to the larger field of cultural representation With a strong emphasis on clarity, lively debate and the widest possible breadth of examples, The New Critical Idiom is an indispensable approach to key topics in literary studies. Also available in this series: The Author by Andrew Bennett Intertextuality by Graham Allen Autobiography by Linda Anderson Irony by Claire Colebrook Class by Gary Day Literature by Peter Widdowson Colonialism/Postcolonialism Magic(al) Realism by Ania Loomba by Maggie Ann Bowers Comedy by Andrew Stott Metre, Rhythm and Verse Form Culture/Metaculture by Philip Hobsbaum by Francis Mulhern Modernism by Peter Childs Difference by Mark Currie Myth by Laurence Coupe Discourse by Sara Mills Narrative by Paul Cobley Drama/Theatre/Performance by Parody by Simon Dentith Simon Shepherd and Mick Wallis Pastoral by Terry Gifford Dramatic Monologue The Postmodern by Simon Malpas by Glennis Byron Realism by Pam Morris Ecocriticism by Greg Garrard Romance by Barbara Fuchs Genders by David Glover and Romanticism by Aidan Day Cora Kaplan Science Fiction by Adam Roberts Gothic by Fred Botting Sexuality by Joseph Bristow Historicism by Paul Hamilton Stylistics by Richard Bradford Humanism by Tony Davies Subjectivity by Donald E. Hall Ideology by David Hawkes The Unconscious Interdisciplinarity by Joe Moran by Antony Easthope selective bibliography iii CRIME FICTION John Scaggs First published 2005 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2005 John Scaggs All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Scaggs, John, 1970– Crime fiction / John Scaggs. p. cm. – (The new critical idiom) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Detective and mystery stories, English–History and criticism. 2. Detective and mystery stories, American–History and criticism. 3. Crime in literature. I. Title. II. Series. PR830.C74S28 2005 823′.087209–dc22 2004016596 ISBN 0-203-59853-9 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0–415–31825–4 (hbk) ISBN 0–415–31824–6 (pbk) To My Grandmother Margaret Carter C ONTENTS Series Editor’s Preface ix Acknowledgements x Introduction 1 1 A Chronology of Crime 7 Early Crime Narratives 7 Crime Stories as Cautionary Tales 13 Crime Fiction and Policing 17 The Golden Age to the Present 26 2 Mystery and Detective Fiction 33 Retracing the Steps: The Origins of Mystery Fiction 33 Reasoning Machines: The Figure of the Amateur Detective 39 Escalating Crimes: From Purloined Letters to Murder 43 Maintaining Social Order and the Status Quo 46 Settings and Sub-Genres 50 3 The Hard-Boiled Mode 55 Murder for a Reason: Origins and Development 55 A Shop-Soiled Galahad: The Private Eye Hero 58 Last Chances and New Beginnings: The Myth of the Frontier 64 Mean Streets and Urban Decay: Modernity and the City 70 Fallen Angels: Appropriation of the Hard-Boiled Mode 77 viii contentsviii contents 4 The Police Procedural 85 Thin Blue Lines: Fiction as Ideological State Apparatus 85 Private Eye to Public Eye: The Development of the Procedural 87 Textual Investigations: Characteristics of the Procedural 91 Social Placebo: The Magic Bullet of Procedural Reassurance 98 Arrested Developments: Appropriations of the Procedural 100 5 The Crime Thriller 105 Outlining the Crime Thriller 105 The Noir Thriller 108 The Anti-Conspiracy Thriller 117 6 Historical Crime Fiction 122 Writing History and Interpreting the Past 122 Crime, History, and Realism 125 The Case of The Name of the Rose 135 Postmodernism and the Anti-Detective Novel 139 Glossary 144 Suggestions for further reading 149 Select bibliography 151 Index 166 S ERIES E DITOR’ S P REFACE The New Critical Idiom is a series of introductory books which seeks to extend the lexicon of literary terms, in order to address the radical changes which have taken place in the study of literature during the last decades of the twentieth century. The aim is to provide clear, well-illustrated accounts of the full range of terminology currently in use, and to evolve histories of its changing usage. The current state of the discipline of literary studies is one where there is considerable debate concerning basic questions of terminology. This involves, among other things, the boundaries which distinguish the literary from the non-literary; the position of literature within the larger sphere of culture; the relationship between literatures of different cultures; and questions concerning the relation of literary to other cultural forms within the context of interdisciplinary studies. It is clear that the field of literary criticism and theory is a dynamic and heterogeneous one. The present need is for individual volumes on terms which combine clarity of exposition with an adventurousness of perspective and a breadth of application. Each volume will contain as part of its apparatus some indication of the direction in which the definition of particular terms is likely to move, as well as expanding the disciplinary boundaries within which some of these terms have been traditionally contained. This will involve some re-situation of terms within the larger field of cultural representation, and will introduce examples from the area of film and the modern media in addition to examples from a variety of literary texts. A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS My thanks first of all to John Drakakis, whose help, support, encour- agement, and advice throughout the process of writing this book, quite apart from getting me across the finishing line, have also taught me a great deal. Thanks also to Liz Thompson at Routledge for her support and enthusiasm from the very early stages of this project, and to everyone at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick, Ireland, who contributed to this book, whether they know it or not. This includes the library staff, the Research Office, and my colleagues in the Department of English: John McDonagh, Gerry Dukes, Florence O’Connor, Glenn Hooper, and, most particularly, Eugene O’Brien. I would also like to thank my family and friends, in particular my mother, Iris Scaggs, and the embarrassingly long list of people who, at some time or another, have had to listen to me ramble on about motive, means, and opportunity, all of which I now have in abundance to thank them: Hugh Widdis, Gavin Byrne, David Crann, Daragh McEnerney, Gary O’Brien, Kieran Cashell, Matt Cannon, and my friend and col- league, Brian Coates. Finally, a special thanks to my fiancée, Alice Bendinelli. INTRODUCTION ‘Intellectual discourse is great, man, but in my business, violence and pain is where it’s at.’ (Crumley 1993: 303) It is worth noting at the outset that while the old adage that crime does not pay might well be true, crime has nevertheless been the foundation for an entire genre of fiction for over one hundred and fifty years. In fact it is the centrality of crime to a genre that otherwise, in its sheer diversity, defies any simple classification that has led me to adopt the title ‘Crime Fiction’ for this volume. Throughout its history, various titles have been coined to classify and describe the genre. From Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘tales of ratiocination’, to the mystery and detective fiction of the turn of the twentieth century and the whodunnit of the period between the First World War and the Second World War, a focus on crime, but only sometimes its investigation, has always been central to the genre. For this reason, the majority of critical studies of the genre over the past twenty years employ the term ‘crime fiction’ to classify an otherwise unclassifiable genre, and this study will be no different.