Contemporary Feminist Historical Crime Fiction [Hardcover]

By examining the feminist interventions of contemporary women writers working in this subgenre, Johnsen advances the existing critical discussion of women's crime fiction. The writers studied here bring research expertise to bear on their chosen historical settings, creating a powerful but widely accessible statement about women in history.Preface: Hystory Girls Contemporary Women's Historical Crime Fiction Medieval Women in Context Legal Violence in Mid-Nineteenth Century America (Re)Presenting Sherlock Holmes Suffragette Disruptions: History, Chronology, Closure Women and the Ever-Present Past Conclusion

This is an engaging book that is the first substantial study of historical crime fiction and persuasively advances feminist theory. Johnsen demonstrates how representative works within the genre employ feminist historiography to link women's writing with political awareness. She primarily focuses on the series of seven historical crime writers because they are well-researched, employ effective narrative strategies, contain well-constructed crime plots, and invite the reader to treat them as a launching pad for further exploration of the moments in women's history that these works have explored in afictional mode. - Martha Reineke, University of Northern Iowa

'Spoiler alert! Johnsen reveals endings and reads beyond them in this serious look at popular series. Selecting fictions which from the early l990s placed female sleuths in historical settings, she judges their effect in the world by a feminist measure: do they exploit the power of fiction to enable change? Sociable mystery readers will be delighted to engage this provocative study at the same time theorists of historical fiction will discover a sturdy intersection with feminist analysis.' Jo Ellyn Clarey, The Drood Review

'In settings that range from twelfth century France to late twentieth century Ireland, Johnsen takes us on a fascinating tour through feminist hl#Ø