European

Contents:

Contents:

A body in a billabong...

The bridegroom who disappears on his wedding day...

A murderer for all the right reasons...

The Australian thriller tradition is rich and some of the early examples almost completely unknown. This collection, selected by Stephen Knight, unearths nuggets of dynamic drama from our archives of crime writing - including writers like Arthur Conan Doyle, Ernest Favenc, Alan Michaelis, Barbara Baynton right up to Peter Corris and Jennifer Rowe.

Stephen Knight's book is a full analytic survey of crime fiction from its origins in the nineteenth century to the most recent developments. Knight explains how and why the various forms of the genre evolved, explores major authors and movements, and argues that the genre as a whole has three parts: the early development of Detection, the growing emphasis on Death, and the modern celebration of Diversity.

Now, for the first time, Australian crime fiction's lurid and elusive past is exposed. Over nearly two hundred years, hundreds of authors and thousands of stories have created a unique national crime fiction.

Contents:

Contents: