Anatomy of murder
Subtitle: mystery, detective, and crime fiction
By: Carl D. Malmgren.
Publisher: Bowling Green State University Popular Press
Published: 2001
Place of publication: Bowling Green, OH
Language: eng
Number of pages: 210
Subjects: Detective and mystery stories, American -- History and criticism; Detective and mystery stories, English -- History and criticism; Popular literature -- English-speaking countries -- History and criticism; Semiotics and literature -- English-speaking countries; Murder in literature; Crime in literature; Literary form
Description: "Anatomy of Murder identifies three basic fictional forms dealing with murder and detection - mystery, detective, and crime fiction. It attempts to express their interrelations, to define their differences, and to explain why these subgenres take the forms they do. Parts One and Two distinguish between mystery and detective in terms of their narrative worlds and their treatment of the sign.

Mystery fiction takes place in a centered world, one whose most distinctive characteristic is motivation (of behavior and signs). Built on a faith in foundations, it insists upon the solidity of social life, the validity of social conventions, and the sanctity of signs. Mystery assures us that motives exist for both words and deeds.".

"Covering the forms that murder fiction takes, Anatomy includes analyses of texts by Doyle, Christie, Sayers, Hammett, Chandler, Highsmith, Jim Thompson, Thomas Harris, and others. It explains how hybrids such as the police procedural or the serial killer novel can be produced by grafting aspects of one subgenre onto those of another. It demonstrates that the various permutations of murder fiction make for very different narrative textures and reading experiences."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 197-206) and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: PART ONE: MYSTERY FICTION; title: I Mystery Fiction and Its Signs; title: 2 Mystery's Design: Special Providence in Mystery Fiction; title: 3 Truth and Justice in Contemporary Mystery Fiction; title: PART TWO: DETECTIVE FICTION; title: 4 Dashiell Hammett and the World of Detective Fiction; title: 5 Grounding the Detective: Raymond Chandler's Fiction; title: 6 Metafictional Detective Fiction; title: PART THREE: CRIME FICTON; title: 7 Crime Fiction's Two Faces; title: 8 Signs of Crime: Jim Thompson's Fiction; title: 9 The Police Procedural and Serial Killer Fiction; title: 8 EPILOGUE; title: BIBLIOGRAPHY; title: INDEX.