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Overview
A century of American history reflected in the iconic private eye.
Steadfast in fighting crime, but operating outside the police force--and sometimes even the law--is the private detective. Driven by his own moral code, he is a shadowy figure in a trench coat standing on a street corner, his face most likely obscured by a tilted fedora, a lit cigarette dangling from his hand. The hard-boiled detective is known by his dark past, private pain, and powers of deduction. He only asks questions--never answers them. In his stories he is both the main character and the narrator.
America has had a love affair with the hard-boiled detective since the 1920s, when Prohibition called into question who really stood on the right and wrong side of the law. And nowhere did this hero shine more than in crime fiction. In Detectives in the Shadows, literary and cultural critic Susanna Lee tracks the evolution of this truly American character type--from Race Williams to Philip Marlowe and from Mike Hammer to Jessica Jones.
Lee explores how this character type morphs to fit an increasingly troubled world, offering compelling interpretations of The Wire, True Detective, and Jessica Jones. Suddenly, in the present day, the hard-boiled detective wears his--or her--fatigue outwardly, revealing more vulnerability than ever before. But the detective remains resolute in the face of sinister forces, ever the person of honor. For anyone interested in crime fiction and television, or for those wanting to understand America's idolization of the good guy with a gun, Detectives in the Shadows is essential reading.
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9781421437095
- ISBN-10: 1421437090
- Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
- Publish Date: August 2020
- Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.8 pounds
- Page Count: 224
- Reading Level: Ages 18-UP
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At the heart of many an American whodunit stands the brooding, solitary private eye. You know the type: wears a trenchcoat and a hat, handy with a gun and quick with a quip, has nerves of steel and a heart of gold. How did this now-classic character come to rule the crime scene? Susanna Lee sheds light on the mystery with Detectives in the Shadows: A Hard-Boiled History.
Lee, an author and scholar, traces the character’s origins back to the 1920s, when crime was escalating in the United States thanks to Prohibition and the country needed a champion. The first iteration of the figure—an action hero-cum-gumshoe named Terry Mack—appeared in Black Mask magazine in 1923, in a story by Carroll John Daly.
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A longtime enthusiast of the genre and a stylish writer in her own right, Lesser delivers a detailed overview of notable authors, past and present, from Sweden, Norway and Denmark (Jo Nesbø, Henning Mankell, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö—the list goes on). She also looks at local cultural factors like art, bureaucracy and religion that figure in the work of many suspense authors and instill the genre with a singular sense of place.
In the book’s second half, Lesser travels to Scandinavia for the first time. Her knowledge and love of the crime fiction tradition shine through as she scopes out landmarks from well-known novels and talks with real-life detectives in Copenhagen, Stockholm and other cities. The end result is a fascinating tribute to a unique breed of mystery. Fans of Nordic noir, take note.
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With its numerous subclassifications—police procedural, whodunit, historical thriller—the mystery genre is an exceptionally addictive field of fiction. Two titles investigate the category’s long-lasting allure.
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Lee, an author and scholar, traces the character’s origins back to the 1920s, when crime was escalating in the United States thanks to Prohibition and the country needed a champion. The first iteration of the figure—an action hero-cum-gumshoe named Terry Mack—appeared in Black Mask magazine in 1923, in a story by Carroll John Daly.
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A longtime enthusiast of the genre and a stylish writer in her own right, Lesser delivers a detailed overview of notable authors, past and present, from Sweden, Norway and Denmark (Jo Nesbø, Henning Mankell, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö—the list goes on). She also looks at local cultural factors like art, bureaucracy and religion that figure in the work of many suspense authors and instill the genre with a singular sense of place.
In the book’s second half, Lesser travels to Scandinavia for the first time. Her knowledge and love of the crime fiction tradition shine through as she scopes out landmarks from well-known novels and talks with real-life detectives in Copenhagen, Stockholm and other cities. The end result is a fascinating tribute to a unique breed of mystery. Fans of Nordic noir, take note.