LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Detective Fiction: Genre
built 264 days ago
The detective fiction that develops from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle privileges rationality and, not coincidentally, masculinity. Pursuit of a singular truth and the restoration of social order are defining features of the genre; the power to perform these functions is invested in a godlike detective figure whose powers are unerring and superhuman. This format was followed and developed in detective fiction’s “Golden Age” by many women writers, amongst whom some of the most popular and productive were Margery Allingham, Agatha Christie, and Dorothy Sayers. Whatever the pleasures of these texts, they are not feminist fictions: evil and social disruption is often located in women or in feminized or otherwise ‘othered’ characte
Source:
'The Art of Detective Fiction is ground breaking. Its essays can be loosely grouped into revisionary histories of the genre, new critical maps of contemporary practice, and valuable attention to women's writing that both looks at gender as a subversive force and shows the potency of the detecting form in shoring up gender conventions. The Art of Detective Fiction is a landmark in the critical reception of its genre.' - Susan Rowland, Association for Research into Popular Fiction
Source:
Combining theoretical and practical approaches, this collection of essays explores classic detective fiction from a variety of contemporary viewpoints. Among the diverse perspectives are those which interrogate the way the genre reflects important social and cultural attitudes, contributes to a reader's ability to adapt to the challenges of daily life, and provides alternate takes on the role of the detective as an investigator and arbiter of "truth."
Source:
This departure into detective fiction shows traces of Hurley’s dalliance in the best seller/thriller genre. There are celebrity villains and plenty of the high life with wealthy yachtsmen and the hazards of offshore ocean racing as part of the scene.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Genre