Criminal proceedings

A fascinating look at this popular genre and its foremost authors, heroes and heroines, including Elmore Leonard, Walter Mosley and John GrishamThe 1990s have seen significant and radical additions to American crime fiction, as the genre has mutated from Chandleresque traditions to a postmodernist fiction, marked especially by the collapse of the 'safe' and distinct categories of criminal, detective and reader. Detective fiction in the US now operates from many different cultural and regional perspectives. The contributors to this book examine the proliferation of subgenres, such as police and court pocedurals, and ask how this kind of writing taps into contemporary social issues. There are chapters on key writers, such as Elmore Leonard, Walter Mosley (President Clinton's favorite crime writer) James Ellroy, John Grisham and Scott Turow amongst others, and on emerging new heroes and heroines of this vital imaginary world.