noir
It Was a Dark and Snowy Night: How heroes became heroines in Nordic noir fiction
Illustration by Zejian Shen.
Film noir used to be personified by the lone detective in a trench coat, chain smoking in rain-dotted lamplight. But 70 years after The Maltese Falcon flew into Tinseltown, that hero has been replaced. Now, standing in that same lamplight, smacking gum in the same misty... Read more »
Why Does TV Have So Many Older Lady Detectives?
There seem to be three accepted roles for women over 40 on TV: mother, wise sage, or ass-kicking crime-solver.
Yes, as soon as we put older women in central roles, we put them in, of all places, the police station. From the first major show starring two not-so-young women, ... Read more »
Murder, She Blogged: Closing the Case
Well, it’s been a great eight weeks guest blogging here at Bitch about detectives and police work, but unfortunately it’s time to close the case.
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Murder, She Blogged: Partners and Sidekicks
While the archetypal hard-boiled detective might be a bit of a lone wolf, almost all detectives—especially on-screen detectives—need a partner, a team, or at least a sidekick.
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Murder, She Blogged: Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Detective Work Outside the System
Despite the dodgy politics of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, Lisbeth Salander is an interesting character from a feminist perspective because she is a rare detective on the outside, with no faith in the system to produce a just result.
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Murder, She Blogged: Young Detectives
One of the reasons the detective genre is so beloved for so many of us, I think, is because we grow up on mysteries and detective stories.
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Murder, She Blogged: The Tourist Detective, Colonial Legacies
Earlier this month, Christian Science Monitor published a list of “Top 7 Detective Series Set in Foreign Locales,” a selection which is meant to “keep you on the edge of your beach chair,” as they put it.
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Murder, She Blogged: Reality Calling
Since this series is about detective narratives in pop culture, this post was originally going to be about CSI. But at time of writing (Tuesday afternoon) everyone in our office in London came home early because of fears of another night of riots and looting, and so it’s just too... Read more »
Murder, She Blogged: The Thin Man
The Thin Man gave us one of the wittiest crime-solving wife-husband duos of all time, retired detective Nick Charles and his wife Nora (Myrna Loy*), who spit one-liners, soak up a tremendous amount of alcohol and stumble around solving crime.
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Murder, She Blogged: Surfing Mystery Writers and the Cop-Criminal Buddy Relationship
From Agatha Christie’s forgotten sporting accomplishments to male bonding between criminals and cops.
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