3. Hard-boiled:
- predominantly written by American authors 4. ‘Noir’ or thriller fiction:
- highly cynical, sarcastic, tough and solitary male figure in his - subgenre of hardboiled crime fiction
mid-30s – 40s
- plots were filled with danger and action
- often a former police officer, single or divorced and sexually
attractive - conventions included: betrayal, sexual promiscuity, deceit, disguise / multiple
identities, danger
- feature much more graphic violence than earlier novels
- popular in the post WW2 period (1970s and 80s)
- incapable police are often a hindrance rather than helper
- the ‘legal thriller’ = lawyers and their employees are main characters proving
- created just after WW1, and at its height during the Great their case
Depression and WW2
- the ‘psychological thriller’ = subgenre also incorporates elements from
- the tough nature of the protagonist reflected the society of the detective fiction as the protagonist must solve the mystery of the psychological
time and the hardships that its people had been through and the conflict
reality of crime in America at the time
Hard-boiled crime fiction 1920s – 50s WW2 1939-45 ‘Noir’ fiction 1970s-80s contemporary crime fic 1980s -
now
Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep 1939: the novel carries with it Modern / contemporary crime fiction:
much of the cynicism of 1930s America. - Catchy dialogue of the
main character, Philip Marlowe, is the epitome of what came to be - main character usually a professional or semi-professional crime solver such
known as "hard-boiled" style—the racy, clever, tough street talk of as a PI or police officer, large use of a Watson-like character who looks up to
the detective narrative. the detective and greater focus on technology and its role in society
- broke away from the previous style of detective fiction, which - larger appearance of female detectives and characters from subcultures such
includes narratives such as the Sherlock Holmes tales and the novels as LGBTQ+ such as P.D James’ the lighthouse 2005, has a female detective
of Agatha Christie. Inspector Kate Miskin and an Anglo-Indian Sergeant Francis Benton-Smith
- Chandler not only broke away from the language of previous - Stieg Larsson’s the girl with the dragon tattoo 2005, dark, propulsive crime
detective fiction, but was also unconventional in plotting, in his play thriller of revenge and retribution that revolutionised the genre
with order, and in the addition of more than one plotline.
- predominantly written by American authors 4. ‘Noir’ or thriller fiction:
- highly cynical, sarcastic, tough and solitary male figure in his - subgenre of hardboiled crime fiction
mid-30s – 40s
- plots were filled with danger and action
- often a former police officer, single or divorced and sexually
attractive - conventions included: betrayal, sexual promiscuity, deceit, disguise / multiple
identities, danger
- feature much more graphic violence than earlier novels
- popular in the post WW2 period (1970s and 80s)
- incapable police are often a hindrance rather than helper
- the ‘legal thriller’ = lawyers and their employees are main characters proving
- created just after WW1, and at its height during the Great their case
Depression and WW2
- the ‘psychological thriller’ = subgenre also incorporates elements from
- the tough nature of the protagonist reflected the society of the detective fiction as the protagonist must solve the mystery of the psychological
time and the hardships that its people had been through and the conflict
reality of crime in America at the time
Hard-boiled crime fiction 1920s – 50s WW2 1939-45 ‘Noir’ fiction 1970s-80s contemporary crime fic 1980s -
now
Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep 1939: the novel carries with it Modern / contemporary crime fiction:
much of the cynicism of 1930s America. - Catchy dialogue of the
main character, Philip Marlowe, is the epitome of what came to be - main character usually a professional or semi-professional crime solver such
known as "hard-boiled" style—the racy, clever, tough street talk of as a PI or police officer, large use of a Watson-like character who looks up to
the detective narrative. the detective and greater focus on technology and its role in society
- broke away from the previous style of detective fiction, which - larger appearance of female detectives and characters from subcultures such
includes narratives such as the Sherlock Holmes tales and the novels as LGBTQ+ such as P.D James’ the lighthouse 2005, has a female detective
of Agatha Christie. Inspector Kate Miskin and an Anglo-Indian Sergeant Francis Benton-Smith
- Chandler not only broke away from the language of previous - Stieg Larsson’s the girl with the dragon tattoo 2005, dark, propulsive crime
detective fiction, but was also unconventional in plotting, in his play thriller of revenge and retribution that revolutionised the genre
with order, and in the addition of more than one plotline.
