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Articles on Crime fiction

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Food can serve many functions in crime fiction, from being used directly as a weapon to expressing cultural belonging, gender or class. from www.shutterstock.com

Friday essay: the meaning of food in crime fiction

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.
Guy Pearce as the Chandleresque private investigator Jack Irish: in the early years of Australian crime fiction, convicts and bushrangers featured prominently. Lachlan Moore

Friday essay: from convicts to contemporary convictions – 200 years of Australian crime fiction

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.
Australian pulp fiction: these works can be read as a symptom, laying bare the unspoken fears, desires, dreams and nightmares of the time. Author provided

Friday essay: the complex, contradictory pleasures of pulp fiction

Mid-20th century pulp fiction was trashy, tasteless, exploitative and lurid. There’s a lot there to love. You might read pulp as a cultural Freudian slip, loony bulletins from the collective Id.
Is everything written by an Australian automatically “Australian writing”? Mark Wassell/Flickr

True Blue? Crime fiction and Australia

Michael Robotham is the second Australian writer to win the Golden Dagger, but is his book Australian? And does it matter?

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