ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book aims to approach the concept of the crime fiction companion in a different way. It presents more complex, open-ended discussions of crime fiction’s multiplicities, its transnationalism and globality, and the ways in which individual crime fiction narratives produce their own unique accounts of what the genre is or means or does. The book explores the main theoretical currents of crime fiction studies. The story of crime fiction, as it has traditionally been told in the academy, has assumed a now-familiar quality. This story, in turn, has tended to give shape to many critical studies of the genre, not to mention university courses. Despite forays into less familiar territory, the “grand narrative” of crime fiction has continued to dominate many of the volumes designed to usher new students and scholars into the field.
