Economic Investigations in Twentieth-Century Detective Fiction
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A01=Yan Zi-Ling
age
Author_Yan Zi-Ling
Big Sleep
Category=DSB
Category=DSBH
Category=DSK
Category=JBCC1
Category=KCZ
Dain Curse
Dead Men
Detective Fiction
Detective Labor
Drawn Back
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_business-finance-law
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Gold Language
golden
Golden Age Detective
Golden Age Fiction
Golden Age Narrative
Golden Age Texts
Green Capsule
hardboiled
harvest
Jean Joseph Goux
labor
locked
Locked Room Mystery
Long Goodbye
Mike Hammer
morgue
Natural Crimes
Nonproductive Expenditure
red
Red Harvest
Red Headed League
room
rue
Speckled Band
Stick Ups
Time Clock
Turk Street
Young Man
Product details
- ISBN 9780367881009
- Weight: 400g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 12 Dec 2019
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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In his study of Golden Age and hard-boiled detective fiction from 1890 to 1950, Yan Zi-Ling argues that these two subgenres can be distinguished not only by theme and style, but by the way they structure knowledge, value, and productive labour. Using the detective as a reference point and enactor of socially based interests, Yan shows that Golden Age texts are distinguished by their conservationism (and not only by their conservatism), with the detectives’ actions serving to stabilize institutions with specific ideological aims. In contrast, the criminal investigations of the hard-boiled detective, who is poorly aligned with institutions and strong interest groups, reveal the fragility of the status quo in the face of escalating cycles of violence. Key to Yan’s discussion are theories of exchange, value, and the gift, the latter of which he suggests is more akin to detective work than is wage labour. Analyzing texts by a wide range of authors that includes Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Dorothy Sayers, Raoul Whitfield, George Harmon Coxe, and Mickey Spillane, Yan demonstrates that the detective’s truth-generating function, most often characterized as a process of discovery rather than creation, is in fact crucial to the institutional and class-based interests that he or she serves.
Yan Zi-Ling is an associate professor at National University of Tainan, Taiwan.
