Bloody Murder: From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel:A History

by JulianSymons (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1986

  $3.49

• Used

  Paperback
  1994

  $9.59

  This edition contains a postscript which, besides dealing with the most recent work of British writers, including P.D. James and Ruth Rendell, considers American trends in crimewriting over the past decade. These are represented by writers such as James Ellroy and Thomas Harris, who, Symons says, enjoy the violence about which they write and want to rub our noses in blood and dirt. Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose and other books like Paul Auster's New York Trilogy, which treat the crime story as a metaphysical joke, also come in for sharp comment. But, like the earlier editions, this latest book is meant for reading, argument, reasoned contradiction .