The Steel Registry: Characters of Detective Fiction

$310.00

Kenneth Strongman
University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

Series: Fine Arts, Music and Literature
BISAC: LIT004230

The Steel Registry. Characters of Crime Fiction is a celebration of the genre of detective fiction and detective fiction characters. Beginning with the earliest eighteenth and nineteenth century crime fiction and concluding with leading contemporary exponents of the genre, the history and development of detective fiction is traced through vignettes of seventy-five crime and detective fiction characters derived from the famous novels of the genre.

Famous detective fiction characters and the authors who created them are celebrated through brief descriptive and exploratory synopses – including luminaries such as Conan-Doyle, Christie, Sayers, Chandler, Hammett, Marsh, Fleming, Stark, Le Carre, Dexter, Follett, Ludlum, Paretsky, Rankin, Burke, Ellroy, Dibdin, Grisham, Temple, Childe, Reichs, Hayder, James, Larsson, Galbraith, Hurwitz, and many more. This book explores the many reasons for reading crime fiction, not the least of them being the vast variety of literature that the genre embraces.

The book also celebrates the “heroes and heroines” of detective fiction, describing in brief the nuances of their characters. Through the pleasures of reading about the challenges these heroes and heroines face, their attempts to stay human in a world which often lacks humanity, the genre of crime fiction also contributes to “good” literature, the stuff of “lit crit” or literary criticism, and so it can also be read with considerations of the development of style and genre. The Steel Registry explores this purer motive as well as the perhaps more usual escapism or sheer enjoyment, being beguiled, being captivated, being grabbed by the throat with a page-turning intensity, that is characteristic of the stimulating novels of the detective fiction genre and the characters of crime fiction created by their inspired authors.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1. William Godwin’s – Caleb Williams – 1794

Chapter 2. Edgar Allan Poe’s – Dupin – 1841

Chapter 3. Wilkie Collins’s – Franklin Blake – 1868

Chapter 4. Robert Louis Stevenson’s – Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – 1886

Chapter 5. Arthur Conan Doyle’s – Sherlock Holmes – 1889

Chapter 6. Oscar Wilde’s – Dorian Gray – 1890

Chapter 7. Henry James’s – Governess – 1898

Chapter 8. John Buchan’s – Richard Hannay – 1915

Chapter 9. G. K. Chesterton’s – Father Brown – 1910

Chapter 10. Agatha Christie’s – Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple – 1920

Chapter 11. Leslie Charteris’s – The Saint – 1928

Chapter 12. Dorothy L. Sayers’s – Lord Peter Wimsey – 1923

Chapter 13. Arthur Upfield’s – Napoleon ‘Bony’ Bonaparte – 1929

Chapter 14. Dashiell Hammett’s – Sam Spade – 1931

Chapter 15. Ngaio Marsh’s – Roderick Alleyn – 1934

Chapter 16. Rex Stout’s – Nero Wolfe – 1934

Chapter 17. Graham Greene’s – Pinkie Brown – 1938

Chapter 18. Raymond Chandler’s – Philip Marlowe – 1939

Chapter 19. Ross Macdonald’s – Lew Archer – 1946

Chapter 20. Ian Fleming’s – James Bond – 1953

Chapter 21. Patricia Highsmith’s – Tom Ripley – 1955

Chapter 22. Richard Stark’s – Parker – 1959

Chapter 23. P. D. James’s – Adam Dalgliesh – 1962

Chapter 24. John Le Carré’s – George Smiley – 1963

Chapter 25. Ruth Rendell’s – Chief Inspector Reginald Wexford –1964

Chapter 26. John D. MacDonald’s – Travis McGee – 1964

Chapter 27. Reginald Hill’s –Dalziel and Pascoe – 1970

Chapter 28. Frederick Forsyth’s – Jackal – 1971

Chapter 29. Colin Dexter’s – Inspector Morse – 1975

Chapter 30. Ken Follett’s – Godliman and Bloggs – 1978

Chapter 31. Umberto Eco’s – Adso of Melk – 1980

Chapter 32. Robert Ludlum’s – Jason Bourne – 1980

Chapter 33. Martin Cruz Smith’s – Arkady Renko – 1981

Chapter 34. Sarah Paretsky’s – V. I Warshawski – 1982

Chapter 35. Colin Forbes – Tweed – 1982

Chapter 36. Carl Hiaasen’s – Florida – 1986

Chapter 37. Ian Rankin’s – John Rebus – 1987

Chapter 38. James Lee Burke’s – Dave Robicheaux – 1987

Chapter 39. Robert Crais’s – Elvis Cole – 1987

Chapter 40. James Ellroy’s – Los Angeles – 1987

Chapter 41. Michael Dibdin’s – Aurelio Zen – 1988

Chapter 42. John Grisham’s – ‘The Lawyers’ – 1989

Chapter 43. Walter Mosley’s – Fearless Jones and Easy Rawlins – 1990

Chapter 44. Patricia Cornwall’s – Kay Scarpetta – 1990

Chapter 45. Lynda La Plante’s – D. C. I. Jane Tennison – 1991

Chapter 46. Michael Connelly’s – Hieronymous ‘Harry’ Bosch – 1992

Chapter 47. Donna Leon’s – Commissario Brunetti – 1992

Chapter 48. Henning Mankell’s – Kurt Wallander – 1993

Chapter 49. Quintin Jardine’s – D. S. Bob Skinner – 1993

Chapter 50. Barry Maitland’s – D. C. I. Brock and D. S. Kolla – 1994

Chapter 51. Val McDermid’s – Dr Tony Hill – 1995

Chapter 52. Janet Evanovich’s – Stephanie Plum – 1995

Chapter 53. Linda Fairstein’s – Alexandra Cooper – 1996

Chapter 54. David Baldacci’s – ‘The Washingtonians’ – 1996

Chapter 55. Edmund Bohan’s – Inspector Patrick O’Rorke – 1996

Chapter 56. Peter Temple’s – Jack Irish – 1996

Chapter 57. Lee Child’s – Jack Reacher – 1997

Chapter 58. Kathy Reichs’s – Temperance Brennan – 1997

Chapter 59. Boris Akunin’s – Erast Fandorin –1998

Chapter 60. Mo Hayder’s – D. I. Jack Cafferey and D. S. Flea Marley – 2000

Chapter 61. Dan Brown’s – Robert Langdon – 2000

Chapter 62. Tess Gerritsen’s – Detective Jane Rizzoli – 2001

Chapter 63. Mark Billingham’s – D. I. Tom Thorne – 2001

Chapter 64. Adrian McKinty’s – Michael Forsythe – 2003

Chapter 65. Peter James’s – Detective Superintendent Roy Grace – 2005

Chapter 66. Stieg Larsson’s – Lisbeth Salander – 2005

Chapter 67. Jo Nesbo’s – Harry Hole – 2005

Chapter 68. Stuart MacBride’s – D. I. Logan McRae – 2005

Chapter 69. John Banville (a. k. a. Benjamin Black’s) – Quirke – 2006

Chapter 70. Paul Cleave’s – D. I. Bill Landry and Theodore Tate – 2006

Chapter 71. Vanda Symon’s – D. C. Samantha Shephard – 2007

Chapter 72. Denise Mina’s – D. S. Alex Morrow – 2009

Chapter 73. Robert Galbraith’s (a. k. a. J. K. Rowling’s) – Cormoran Strike – 2013

Chapter 74. Gregg Hurwitz’s – Orphan X – 2016

Chapter 75. Jane Harper’s – Aaron Falk – 2017

Conclusion

Publish with Nova Science Publishers

We publish over 800 titles annually by leading researchers from around the world. Submit a Book Proposal Now!