The following books were generously provided to the judges of the Seventh Annual International Crime Fiction Association Book Prize for non-fiction books on crime fiction published in 2024. 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 Seventh Annual International Crime Fiction Association Book Prize for non-fiction books on crime fiction published in 2024, listed in alphabetical order by author/editor. The range and creativity of the volumes attest to the deep interest in crime fiction scholarship and its truly international reach. Please consider ordering some for yourself or your libraries!
Ashman, Nathan. The Routledge handbook of crime fiction and ecology.
Ashman, Nathan. James Sallis: a companion to the mystery fiction. McFarland.
Bedore, Pamela. The Routledge introduction to Canadian crime fiction.
Beyer, Charlotte. Crime Fiction in the Age of #MeToo. Anthem Press.
Bloomfield, Jem. Allusion in detective fiction: Shakespeare, the Bible and Dorothy L. Sayers. Palgrave Macmillan.
Christiensen, Matthew J. Anglophone African detective fiction 1940-2020: the state, the citizen, and the sovereign ideal. James Currey, Woodbridge, Suffolk [England],
Clanton, Dan w. Jr. God and the little grey cells: religion in Agatha Christie's Poirot stories. Bloomsbury T & T Clark.
Dalrympe, Roger, and Andrew Green. The Idea of Education in Golden Age Detective Fiction. Routledge.
Drumsta, Emily. Ways of Seeking: The Arabic Novel and the Poetics of Investigation. Univ. of California P [open access].
Evans, Lucy. Crime Fiction in the Caribbean: Reframing Crime and Justice. Oxford.
Hamlin and Romance, eds. Dark places: crime and politics in the personal noir of James Ellroy. Lexington Books.
Han, John et al. Certainty and ambiguity in global mystery fiction: essays on the moral imagination. Bloomsbury Academic.
Hastie, Amelie. Columbo: Make me a perfect murder. Duke UP
Krawczyk-Żywko, Lucyna. Holmes and the Ripper. Palgrave Macmillan.
Maier, Moritz. De/mythologizing Jack the Ripper. Fictional Appropriations as a Metanarrative of Constructing and Reading Serial Murder. ELCH - Studies in English Literary and Cultural History. WVT.
Mello-Goldner, Diane. A detective's history of psychology: understanding key theories and concepts through mystery fiction. McFarland.
Naicker, Kamil. Return to the Scene of the Crime: the returnee detective and postcolonial crime fiction. Routledge.
Nolan and Martin eds. The Crossroads of Crime Writing: Unseen Structures and Uncertain Spaces. Anthem Press.
Pâquet, Lili and Rosemary Williamson, eds. True crime and women: writers, readers, and representations. Routledge.
Peate, Ailsa. Subverting sex, gender, and genre in Cuban and Mexican detective fiction. Liverpool.
Reitz, Caroline. Female anger in crime fiction. Cambridge UP.
Sandberg, Eric. Studying crime in fiction: an introduction. Routledge.
Varvogli, Aliki. Forensic crime fiction. Cambridge UP.
Yoon, Sarah. The ambivalent detective in Victorian sensation novels: Dickens, Braddon, and Collins. Routledge.
The short list, in alphabetical order by author:
Bedore, Pamela. The Routledge Companion to Canadian Crime Fiction.
Evans, Lucy. Crime Fiction in the Caribbean: Reframing Crime and Justice.
Maier, Moritz. De/mythologizing Jack the Ripper. Fictional Appropriations as a Metanarrative of Constructing and Reading Serial Murder.
Pâquet, Lili and Rosemary Williamson, eds. True Crime and Women: Writers, Readers, and Representations.
Reitz, Caroline. Female Anger in Crime Fiction.
Yoon, Sarah. The Ambivalent Detective in Victorian Sensation Novels: Dickens, Braddon, and Collins.
We are pleased to announce that the winner is...
Female Anger in Crime Fiction, by Caroline Reitz
Reitz explores “the ethics and efficacy of anger in female-centered crime fiction from its first stirrings in the 19th century through second wave feminism's angry, individualist heroes until today's current explosion of women who reject respectability and justification.”
First runner up is...
Crime Fiction in the Caribbean: Reframing Crime and Justice, by Lucy Evans
With a very fine introduction and studies from Agatha Christie to more modern works from several Caribbean nations, Evans’ work fills a lacuna in global crime fiction.
Second runner up is...
De/mythologizing Jack the Ripper. Fictional Appropriations as a Metanarrative of Constructing and Reading Serial Murder, by Moritz Maier
The heftiest of this year’s entries, Maier’s work is a thorough, well-written, and very encompassing discussion of Ripperology.
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
