Sara Paretsky: Detective Fiction as Trauma Literature - Paperback

Sara Paretsky is known for her influential V.I. Warshawski series, which transformed the masculine hard-boiled detective formula into a vehicle for feminist values. But Paretsky does more than this. Her novels also illustrate the extent to which detective fiction acts as a literature of trauma, allowing Paretsky to address the politics of agency in ways that go beyond the personal, for trauma always has a social and a political dimension. Paretsky's work also exploits the way detective fiction mirrors the writing of history. Here, Paretsky uses the form to expose the partiality of historical accounts - whether they be personal, institutional, or national - that authorise 'forgetting' of a particularly insidious kind. Significantly, all these issues are explored within the framework of the traditional hard-boiled detective novel. As a result, Paretsky's achievement forces us to acknowledge the deeply subversive potential of detective fiction.

Back Jacket

This is the first book-length study of Sara Paretsky's detective fiction. Although she is known for her influential V.I. Warshawski series, which transformed the masculine hard-boiled detective formula into a vehicle for feminist values, Paretsky does more than this: she uses contemporary instances of corporate malfeasance and political corruption to indict the indifference, inadequacy, and betrayals of institutions charged with promoting the public good.