Do we read crime novels because we know what is right and wrong, or for guidance through a world that appears ‘all grey’? The books of lawyer-turned-writer Dervla McTiernan prompt such questions.
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
Articles on Crime fiction
Displaying 1 - 20 of 41 articles
A true hoax provokes. It questions cultural biases, shattering conventions. But the curious case of the three men writing as a female author Carmen Mola does none of this.
Criminal reads to warm your autumn nights.
There’s something disturbing about a story tracking a character’s mental decline for thrills. Happily, Paula Hawkins’ new novel, A Slow Fire Burning, joins a genre of books bucking this trend.
Just when you think you’ve had enough of detectives behaving badly, along comes Claire DeWitt. She is, frankly, a beautifully written mess.
Created by a prolific French author, Inspector Jules Maigret observes without judgement and moves like a chameleon between social classes.
Christie used her Belgian sleuth to unpick ideas of England and Englishness.
Sure, she has quirks. But TV detective Vera is no amateur. And Brenda Blethyn’s embodiment of her evokes a strong sense of place.
The Inspector Morse prequel series reveals a less certain younger detective, finding his feet but not yet set in his ways.
Kevin Brophy’s favourite detective — Kurt Wallander — has aged just ahead of him, made mistakes and lived vividly.
Crime fiction is the second most popular literary genre in Africa after romance. A reading of Kenyan author Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ’s Black Star Nairobi reveals how it has disrupted the genre.
A group of leading black, queer and feminist academics held a colloquium to reconsider a seminal blackness studies text – offering new ways of thinking about the decolonial project.
Whether they are set in a country house or on the mean streets, detective novels tell us so much about human nature.
Green is lethal: the colour of radioluminescent paint, arsenic and chlorine gas. It is also the colour of crime fiction paperbacks.
A new batch of female crime writers are bringing their real life experiences of law enforcement to their work in a way that rings true for readers.
The archetype can be traced back to 1920s detective fiction, when gruff, gun-toting, cigarette-smoking mavericks became heroic figures.
With The Dying Trade, Peter Corris introduced Australia to one of its most successful crime heroes, Cliff Hardy.
Food is an increasingly popular ingredient in crime fiction, serving up insights into the character of the detective hero and adding spice to the mystery.
Australia’s rich tradition of crime fiction is little known – early tales told of bushrangers and convicts, one hero was a mining engineer turned amateur detective – but it reveals a range of national myths and fantasies.
How 4,000-year-old papyrus letters prompted the queen of crime fiction to write Death Comes as the End.
Top contributors
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Senior Lecturer, School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University
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Senior Professor of Communication and Media Studies, University of Wollongong
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Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing, The University of Melbourne
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Associate Professor, Department of Literary Studies in English, Rhodes University
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Associate Professor of Media, Macquarie University
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Honorary Research Professor, The University of Melbourne
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Senior Lecturer in Social Work, University of Salford
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Senior Lecturer – Criminal Law, Procedure, Digital Criminology, University of Sydney
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Professor of Criminology, University of Leeds
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Professor of Criminology & Public Policy, University of Brighton
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EG Whitlam Research Fellow, Whitlam Institute within Western Sydney University, and Associate Professor, University of Notre Dame Australia
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Principal Lecturer, Social Care and Social Work, Manchester Metropolitan University
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Dean, Graduate Research, University of Canberra
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Professor in English Literature, University of Essex
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Lecturer in English Literature, Bath Spa University
