Overview
- Sketches a lively and accessible overview of the growth of the Anglophone legal thriller
- Provides a refreshing focus on the growing concern with gender and ethnicity within the genre
- Offers the first dedicated analysis of the legal thriller
Part of the book series: Crime Files (CF)
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About this book
This book offers a critically informed yet relaxed historical overview of the legal thriller, a unique contribution to crime fiction where most of the titles have been written by professionals such as lawyers and judges.
The legal thriller typically uses court trials as the suspense-creating background for presenting legal issues reflecting a wide range of concerns, from corporate conflicts to private concerns, all in a dramatic but highly informed manner. With authors primarily from the USA and the UK, the genre is one which nonetheless enjoys a global reading audience. As well as providing a survey of the legal thriller, this book takes a gender–focused approach to analyzing recently published titles within the field. It also argues for the fascination of the legal thriller both in the way its narrative pattern parallels that of an actual court trial, and by the way it reflects, frequently quite critically, the concerns of contemporary society.
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Keywords
- crime fiction
- suspense fiction
- genre fiction
- courtroom fiction
- courtroom drama
- mass market paperback
- pulp magazines
- American legal system
- British legal system
- female crime writers
- American fiction
- British fiction
- Perry Mason
- Erle Stanley Gardner
- John Grisham
- interdisciplinary studies
- British and Irish Literature
Table of contents (9 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Reviews
“Lars Ole Sauerberg’s The Legal Thriller from Gardner to Grisham: See You in Court! is a welcome volume for both fans of the legal thriller and scholars interested in crime-related popular culture. The author offers a spirited attempt to define printed legal thrillers as a genre and an insightful tour of what he characterizes as ‘a sufficiently representational overview’ of individual legal thrillers … .” (David Ray Papke, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, clcjbooks.rutgers.edu, January, 2018)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Lars Ole Sauerberg is Professor of Literature in English at the University of Southern Denmark. He has written extensively on crime fiction, both academically and as the crime-fiction reviewer of Denmark’s leading quality newspaper over the last 30 years. He is a founding member of the Danish Crime Academy.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Legal Thriller from Gardner to Grisham
Book Subtitle: See you in Court!
Authors: Lars Ole Sauerberg
Series Title: Crime Files
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-40730-6
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan London
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-137-40729-0Published: 20 December 2016
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-349-68097-9Published: 21 April 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-40730-6Published: 10 November 2016
Series ISSN: 2947-8340
Series E-ISSN: 2947-8359
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XV, 199
Topics: Fiction, Contemporary Literature, British and Irish Literature, North American Literature, Genre