Class and Culture in Crime Fiction

Crime fiction world of the late 1970s, with its increasingly diverse landscape, is a natural beginning for this collection of critical studies wherein the intersection of class, culture, and crime gets foregrounded - each nuanced with shades of gender, ethnicity, race, and politics. This collection of ten essays attempts to raise broad and complicated questions about the role of class and culture in transatlantic crime fiction beyond the Golden Age: How is "class" understood in detective fiction, other than as a socio-economic marker? Without indulging in myths or exaggerations, can we distinguish between major British and American class concerns as they relate to crime? How politically informed is popular detective fiction in responding to economic crises in Scotland, Ireland, England, and in the United States? When issues of race and gender intersect with concerns of class and culture, does the crime writer in question privilege one or another factor in her focus or resolution? Do values and preoccupations of a primarily middle-class readership get reflected in popular detective fiction?