The following books were generously provided to the judges of the Sixth Annual International Crime Fiction Association Book Prize for non-fiction books on crime fiction published in 2023. All books reviewed were worthy entries in the contest, and the range and creativity of the volumes attest to the deep interest in crime fiction scholarship.
The following books were generously provided to the judges of the Sixth Annual International Crime Fiction Association Book Prize for non-fiction books on crime fiction published in 2023, listed in alphabetical order by author/editor. The range and creativity of the volumes attest to the truly international scale and deep interest in crime fiction scholarship. Please consider ordering some for yourself or your academic libraries.
Andersen, Robin. Investigating Death in Paradise: Finding New Meaning in the BBC Mystery Series. McFarland.
Babbar, Anjili. Finders: Justice, Faith, and Identity in Irish Crime Fiction. Syracuse UP.
Barnes, Charlotte. Deconstructing True Crime Literature. Palgrave Macmillan.
Beyer, Charlotte. Intersectionality and Decolonisation in Contemporary British Crime Fiction. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Booth, Nathaniel. God and the Great Detective; Ellery Queen’s Struggle with the Divine, 1945-1965. McFarland.
Bordwell, David. Perplexing Plots: Popular Storytelling and the Poetics of Murder, Columbia UP
Bubikova, Sarka, and Olga Roebuck. The Place it was Done; Location and Community in Contemporary American and British Crime Fiction. McFarland.
Dall’Asta, Monica et al. Contemporary European Crime Fiction: Representing History and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan.
Evans, Mary and J.C. Berthal, eds. The Bloomsbury Handbook to Agatha Christie. Bloomsbury.
Hopkins, Lisa. Ocular Proof and the Spectacled Detective in British Crime Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan
Ibánez, José R. Retrospective Poe: the Master, His Readership, His Legacy. Palgrave Macmillan.
Lake, Anthony, Nazi Germany and the Holocaust in Historical Crime Fiction: What’s One More Murder. Routledge.
Link, Sarah J. A Narratological Approach to Lists in Detective Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan.
McDowell, Marta, Gardening Can Be Murder: How Poisonous Poppies, Sinister Shovels, and Grim Gardens Have Inspired Mystery Writers. Timber Press.
Okabe, Tsugumi. Manga, Murder, and Mystery: The Boy Detectives of the Lost Generation. Bloomsbury Academic.
Pezzotti, Barbara Mediterranean Crime Fiction: Transcultural Narratives in and around the "Great Sea": Cambridge UP.
Pugh, Tison. Understanding Agatha Christie. U of South Carolina P.
Slavin, Molly. Criminal Cities The Postcolonial Novel and Cathartic Crime. University of Virginia P.
Usiekniewicz, Marta. Food, Consumption, and Masculinity in American Hardboiled Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan.
Wei, Yan. The Transculturation of Judge Dee Stories: a Cross-Cultural Perspective. Routledge.
The IFCA Book Prize recognizes ingenuity, innovation, and scholarship in the academic study of crime fiction and crime writing in its widest sense. In response to these criteria, the judges first made a short list of the top three works, followed by a determination of the winner.
We are pleased to announce two winners of the 2023 competition:
Posthumous winner: Perplexing Plots: Popular Storytelling and the Poetics of Murder, by David Bordwell.
Professor Bordwell, the “scholar who demystified the art of film” (NYT), was the author or co-author, often with his wife, of more than twenty books on film. Robert Ebert considered him “our best writer on the cinema” (NYT). In his last book Perplexing Plots, Bordwell examines the murder plot in novels, stories, plays, and films across decades, from the 1910s to Gone Girl. He studies structure, patterns, and plot devices to demonstrate that mystery-based story telling in any genre inherently contains novelty and innovation in order to gradually reveal the hidden mystery at the center of the story.
Prize winner: Manga, Murder, and Mystery: The Boy Detectives of Japan’s Lost Generation, by Mimi Okabe.
When we think of boy detectives, we might think of Sherlock Holmes’ Baker Street Irregulars or the Hardy Boys Mysteries, but Okabe takes us to Japan and its boy detectives, demonstrating the generic and international range of crime fiction. She focuses on the Lost Generation of the late 80s and early 90s, as well as the Lost Decade(s) of economic stagnation, crime and unrest beginning in the early 90s. It's beautifully done, a unique book on an understudied group of detectives, genre, and country. She ends with a suggestion of further study—detective focused video games.
First runner up is:
Contemporary European Crime Fiction: Representing History and Politics, edited by Monica Dall’Asta , Jacques Migozzi, Federicl Pagello, and Andrew Pepper.
This edited volume covers contemporary crime fiction about World War I and II, the post-World War II era, and the Post-1989 era, taking a pan-European approach to issues of politics, economics, identities, and the role of the state while also attending to crime fiction in specific nation states.
Second runner up is:
Deconstructing True Crime Literature, by Charlotte Barnes.
Barnes advocates for creating subgenres of True crime. As the title suggests, True crime writing is examined by taking it apart, focusing especially on accuracy, authenticity, and authorial proximity. And because these works deal with “real-life criminal proceedings with victims both living and deceased,” they must be treated with respect, both in how they are created and how they are consumed.
Congratulations to all the authors and editors of these outstanding volumes of crime fiction scholarship.
University of Scranton
Scranton, Pennsylvania, United States
Otto-Friedrich Universität
Bamberg, Germany
Falmouth University
Falmouth, England
