ABSTRACT
The relationship between psychoanalysis and crime fiction is one full of interlocking themes, patterns, devices, and desires. At the heart of both is the investigation of a conflict, with the intention of effecting resolution and closure. The figure of the psychoanalyst doubles with that of the detective, as an agent bent on interpreting clues and symbols, a figure of power who applies ratiocinative skills to a particular text. The psychoanalyst is adept at identifying repetition and return, something which characterizes not just the action of a detective, but as Daniel Gunn has suggested in Psychoanalysis and Fiction, using Maurice Blanchot and quoting Peter Brooks:
Narrative always makes the implicit claim to be in a state of repetition, as a going over again of a ground already covered: a sjuzet repeating the fabula, as the detective retraces the tracks of the criminal. This claim to be an act of repetition-‘I sing’, ‘I tell’—appears to be initiatory of narrative.1
