Includes bibliographical references and index.

On crime and detective fiction -- Critical contexts. From mean streets to imagined world: the development of detective fiction -- Your sin will find you out: critical perceptions of mystery fiction -- From "the case of the pressed flowers" to the serial killer's torture chamber: the use and function of crime fiction sub-genres in Steig Larsson's The girl with the dragon tattoo -- A comparative assessment: The conjure-man dies, Blind man with a pistol, and Mumbo jumbo -- Critical readings. Five hundred years of Chinese crime fiction -- Assimilation, innovation, and dissemination: detective fiction in Japan and East Asia -- Latin American crime fiction -- Criminal welfare states, social consciousness, and critique in Scandinavian crime novels -- From "hard-boiled detective" to "fallen man": the literary lineage and post-war emergence of film noir -- The metaphysical detective story -- Native American detective fiction -- American crime fiction readers and the three percent problem.