Lesbian Detective Fiction: Woman as Author, Subject and Reader

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McFarland, Jul 24, 2006 - Literary Criticism - 207 pages

This work examines how lesbian detective and mystery fiction represents lesbian characters and experience within the confines of the genre. As this book points out, such fiction reveals the lesbian's increasing visibility in the wider society. Nevertheless, it can still be difficult to find a complete representation of lesbian life in mainstream literature. Often the best place to find the lesbian represented in books is within the pages of genre fiction--especially the detective story.

This book looks at how the lesbian characters' public and private lives intersect--often at the point of coming out, or of moving from isolation to connection with the community. Also considered is the lesbian detective's typical confrontation with two crucial elements of the investigator's role: the use of violence and the acquisition and expression of authority within police systems. Other topics of discussion include the cultural environments in which the stories are situated, and the use of humor as a key weapon in the lesbian detective's investigative arsenal.

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Contents

Acknowledgments
1
List of Authors and Characters
15
Having Sex Finding Love
40
Playing the Boys Game
67
Lesbian Tough Guys
92
Marginal Values
119
Real Time Gay Time
144
Gathering the Evidence
171
Works Cited
187
Copyright

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About the author (2006)

Phyllis M. Betz is a professor emerita of English from La Salle University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She lives in Burlington, New Jersey.

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