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Dr. Paul Giacomin is a co-founder of Paragen Bio. Dr. Siracusa is the founder and president of Nemagen Discoveries. The other Topic Editors declare no competing interests with regard to the Research Topic subject.
Through close readings of these three figures, Robinson argues that more is going on among American men than meets the casual eye - and that much of what is going on is reflected in the most popular of our art forms, detective novels, action movies, and rock music.
When Robert B. Parker passed in early 2010, the world lost two great men: Parker himself, iconic American crime writer whose books have sold more than 6 million copies worldwide, and his best-known creation, Spenser. Parker's Spenser series not only influenced the work of countless of today's writers, but is also credited with reviving and forever changing the genre. In Pursuit of Spenser offers a look at Parker and to Spenser through the eyes of the writers he influenced. Editor Otto Penzler-- proprietor of one of the oldest and largest mystery specialist bookstores in the country, New York's The Mysterious Bookshop, and renowned mystery fiction editor whose credits include series editor fo...
The hard-bitten PI with a bottle of bourbon in his desk drawer--it's an image as old as the genre of hard-boiled detective fiction itself. Alcohol has long been an important element of detective fiction, but it is no mere prop. Rather, the treatment of alcohol within the works informs and illustrates the detective's moral code, and casts light upon the society's attitudes towards drink. This examination of the role of alcohol in hard-boiled detective fiction begins with the genre's birth, in an era strongly influenced and affected by prohibition, and follows both the genre's development and its relation to our changing understanding of and attitudes towards alcohol and alcoholism. It discusses the works of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Mickey Spillane, Robert B. Parker, Lawrence Block, Marcia Muller, Karen Kijewski and Sue Grafton. There are bibliographies of both the primary and critical texts, and an index of authors and works.
The hard-boiled private detective is among the most recognizable characters in popular fiction since the 1920s--a tough product of a violent world, in which police forces are inadequate and people with money can choose private help when facing threatening circumstances. Though a relatively recent arrival, the hard-boiled detective has undergone steady development and assumed diverse forms. This critical study analyzes the character of the hard-boiled detective, from literary antecedents through the early 21st century. It follows change in the novels through three main periods: the Early (roughly 1927-1955), during which the character was defined by such writers as Carroll John Daly, Dashiell...
Even before he was named Grand Master for Lifetime Achievement by the Mystery Writers of America, Edgar® Award-winning author Robert B. Parker had assumed the mantle of dean of American crime fiction. “Taking his place beside Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Ross MacDonald” (The Boston Globe), Parker has transcended the conventions of the crime genre. As one of the most popular and prolific writers in the world, he has reinvented crime writing with his inimitable style and unforgettable characters. Now discover everything about everything that is Robert B. Parker: • Comprehensive biography of Robert B. Parker • Inside the Spenser novels • All about the Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall novels • Parker’s stand-alone fiction • Complete cast of characters • Spenser on film • Robert B. Parker’s Boston—locales, crime scenes, and maps • Memorable quotes • Inclusive bibliography Plus, an exclusive and insightful new interview with Robert B. Parker.
We Must Have Certainty surveys the development of the genre of the detective story from its origins in the mid-nineteenth century to its current profile in the early twenty-first century. It locates a principal appeal of the genre in the nature of the world that the detective necessarily inhabits: a world of more or less realistic violence and excitement and, at the same time, a world that always, in the end, makes sense. It suggests that there is a significance to a popular narrative formula that requires that an initial world of suspicion and uncertainty be inevitably transformed by the detective into a world of clarity and order. Though scholarship in the field is acknowledged, the author's citations are most often from detective stories themselves. The essays are written in an accessible style; those who have read a few novels in the genre, as well as those who have read many, will find the book stimulating and provocative.