ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to outline critical theories and debates surrounding self-referentiality and metafiction in crime fiction, and to speculate briefly on the future of the field as scholars pay increasing attention to diversity within the crime novel. Upholding a distinction between “cozy” British mysteries and “hardboiled” American thrillers, Susan Rowland has coined the concept of “cozy metafiction”, which “reinforces and blurs the lines between life and death”. The chapter examines the traditional uses of self-referentiality and metafiction in puzzle-based crime fiction, considers broader and more contemporary applications, and looks at how these perspectives might inform one another as the genre continues to develop and diversify. As social and political aspects of crime fiction diversify, and a critique of metanarratives overtakes the playfulness of metafiction, it is possible that new areas of referentiality will pervade even the most mainstream crime writing.
