Introduction
The politics, main forms, and key concerns of crime fiction. The politics of crime fiction; The types of crime fiction; Classical detective fiction; Hard-boiled detective fiction; The police novel; Transgressor fictions; Vision, supervision, and the city; Crime and the body; Gender matters; Representations of race
Discussions of individual texts. Edgar Allan Poe: "The murders in the Rue Morgue"; Arthur Conan Doyle : The sign of four; Agatha Christie : The murder of Roger Aykroyd; Dashiell Hammett : The Maltese falcon; Raymond Chandler : The big sleep; James M. Cain : Double indemnity; Patricia Highsmith : The talented Mr. Ripley; Chester Himes : Cotton comes to Harlem; Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo : The laughing policeman; James Ellroy : The black dahlia; Thomas Harris : The silence of the lambs; Patricia Cornwell : Unnatural exposure; Ian Rankin : The naming of the dead; Stieg Larsson : The girl with the dragon tattoo.