Reviews for Crime Fiction

The average rating for Crime Fiction based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-07-01 00:00:00 Bernie Johns Actually, the first half to two thirds of the book is actually useful. Once it hits the police procedural and historical crime fiction, it goes of on a left-wing, postmodernist tear, which renders the book virtually unreadable. When he discusses history, it is as if Heisenburg's Uncertainty Principle, took flight from quantum physics and landed in history, where the postmodernist theory postulates that not only can you not "know" anything, it's all fiction. Poppycock.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-07-09 00:00:00 Erich Lohde Excellent broad spectrum based analysis of Crime Fiction - covered in 6 chapters (over 143 pages) under the following headings: A Chronology of Crime Mystery & Detective Fiction (covers golden age classical crime) The Hard-Boiled Mode The Police Procedural The Crime Thriller Historical Crime Fiction Most of the book is written in a style that a lay crime fiction reading person could understand - and discusses the main authors who wrote under that particular genre - however about 30% of the book does discuss academic themes especially at the beginning of Chapter 6 (Historical Crime Fiction) . If you are looking for reading recommendations then this book isn't likely to appeal as it main reason of being is to discuss the development of crime fiction - it's originals, genres, sub genres and themes within crime fiction that are linked to other genres e.g. gothic literature & westerns & across genres and sub genres and whether political/world events helped create this (sub) genres e.g. spy thriller. The author also links in films and TV series (mostly US) to particular genres to give a different slant from the reading public. My only areas of criticism for this book - is that it concentrated too much on Hard Boilers & Police Procedural chapters (obviously the authors favourite areas of crime fiction). American authors and books that may have been more popular in the US - dominant the discussion to the exclusion of British authors. Few references are made to lesser known crime fiction authors. I would give this book 8.5 out of 10.