You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Andrea Japp uses her remarkable knowledge of French history to tell an intricate and spellbinding story of a battle between church and state. 'An excellent read' Historical Novels Review 1304. The Church and the French Crown are locked in a power struggle. In the Normandy countryside, monks on a secret mission are brutally murdered and a poisoner is at large at Clairets Abbey. Young noblewoman Agnès de Souarcy fights to retain her independence but must face the Inquisition, unaware that she is the focus of an ancient quest.
Combining elements of medievalism, the historical novel and the detective narrative, medieval crime fiction capitalizes upon the appeal of all three--the most famous examples being Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose (one of the best-selling books ever published) and Ellis Peters' endearing Brother Cadfael series. Hundreds of other novels and series fill out the genre, in settings ranging from the so-called Celtic Enlightenment in seventh-century Ireland to the ruthless Inquisition in fourteenth-century France to the mean streets of medieval London. The detectives are an eclectic group, including weary ex-crusaders, former Knights Templar, enterprising monks and nuns, and historical poets such as Geoffrey Chaucer. This book investigates the enduring popularity of the largely unexamined genre and explores its social, cultural and political contexts.
This book offers a study of Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and French crime fictions covering a fifty-year period. From 1965 to the present, both Scandinavian and French societies have undergone significant transformations. Twelve literary case studies examine how crime fictions in the respective contexts have responded to shifting social realities, which have in turn played a part in transforming the generic codes and conventions of the crime novel. At the centre of the book’s analysis is crime fiction’s negotiation of the French model of Republican universalism and the Scandinavian welfare state, both of which were routinely characterised as being in a state of crisis at the end of the twentieth century. Adopting a comparative and interdisciplinary approach, the book investigates the interplay between contemporary Scandinavian and French crime narratives, considering their engagement with the relationship of the state and the citizen, and notably with identity issues (class, gender, sexuality and ethnicity in particular).
In the fourth Victor Legris mystery, our protagonist investigates a case on his own doorstep. 'Extremely satisfying' Providence Journal-Bulletin Parisian bookseller, Victor Legris, finds a new case to investigate very close to home, when his business partner's apartment is burgled. Curiously, the only item stolen is a decorative goblet of little value. But on learning that two people with connections to the goblet have been murdered, Victor becomes convinced of its secret significance. How quickly can he bring the killing spree to an end, in a city beset by terrorist activity?
All the novelists studied were published initially in popular collections, such as the Serie noire, but they have been chosen for the innovation of their work and the exciting ways in which they resist tired conventions and offer new ways of representing social reality." "One of the first English-language studies of this popular genre, The Roman Noir in Post-War French Culture offers much more than close readings of these fascinating texts; it demonstrates the important contribution of the roman noir to the cultural histories of post-war France."--Jacket.
Second part of the Agnes de Souarcy trilogy.
In the first major study of representations of World War II in French crime fiction, Margaret-Anne Hutton draws on a corpus of over a hundred and fifty texts spanning more than sixty years. Included are well-known writers (male and female) such as Aubert, Simenon, Boileau-Narcejak, Vargas, Daeninckx, and Jonquet, as well as a broad range of lesser-known authors. Hutton's introduction situates her study within the larger framework of literary representations of World War II, setting the stage for her discussions of genre; the problem of defining crimes and criminals in the context of the war; the epistemological issues that arise in the relationship between World War II historiography and the crime novel; and the temporal textures linking past crimes to the present. Filling a gap in the fields of crime fiction and fictional representations of the War, Hutton's book calls into question the way both crime fiction and the French theatre of World War II have been conceptualized and codified.
In the 1990s the French literary arena was enlivened by the emergence of a new generation of women writers. This book selects six of its most distinctive voices and addresses important questions about the very new in French women's writing. What are young women choosing to write about? What do they tell us about changing perceptions of feminine identities? What does it mean to write (and to read) as women at the start of the new millennium? An introductory chapter explores key issues such as the woman writer in the public imagination and continuity and change within French women's writing since the 1970s. It also highlights thematic threads which recur across the work of the authors studied:...
China is facing tremendous economic, social and political challenges, as well as having become a predominant contributor to climate change. It has also become a predator against the Uyghurs, the Tibetans, and the Mongols, and taken over Hong Kong, silencing any forms of dissent. It increasingly appears that one of the Communist regime's main goals is to control the entire world, but this global ambition now faces mounting geopolitical difficulties. At the center stands Taiwan, which has become a full-blown democracy and, perhaps, a model for the entire Chinese nation. The United States - along with Japan, South Korea, Australia, India, and other states - are, more than ever before, willing to defend Taiwan. The possibility of a clash is real, making China along with Russia the main threat to the democratic world.