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The article starts from the observation that Irish fiction has recently shown a diversification, which can be summarised as follows: on the one hand there are works addressing the history of Ireland, on the other hand we see novels focusing on post-national topics (cf. Haekel). John Banville, who under the pseudonym of Benjamin Black also wrote crime novels, is a renowned representative of narrative fiction informed by contemporary philosophy and aesthetics, exploring questions such as memory, cognition, and personal identity. My article reveals how in his latest (and allegedly last) literary novel The Singularities (2022) his highly sophisticated character narration reaches a terminal point, as self-reflexivity, textual referentiality, and abstraction become unsettling. However, the complexity of placing his work in literary history has intensified by the appearance of three more novels published between 2020 and 2023 under Banville’s own name despite the supposed finality of The Singularities. Surprisingly, Snow (2020), April in Spain (2021) and The Lock-Up (2023) revisit dismal topics from Irish national history. These thematically (trans)national fictions also enhance the propositions of realism in Banville’s work. They present another hybrid form of narrative genres, blending crime fiction and historical novel, infused with philosophical reflection. The writer evades a categorisation. With The Singularities, Banville wishes to take his departure from the philosophical novel, as it seems with the intention to continue writing his new kind of murder mystery. The Lock-Up will be followed by another crime novel in October 2024. The Singularities, I wish to show in my analysis, points at the exhaustion due to a self-reflexive probing of the subject, the unreliability of knowledge, and the impossibility of truthful representation. Reality appears gloomy, yet in the end art surfaces as a source of freedom and imaginativeness for the individual and prospering kinds of fellowship.

In this conversation with Max Ward, David Peace discusses his motivations for writing the Tokyo Trilogy, the historical research that went into it, and the political questions related to postwar Japan that he wanted to pursue. They then discuss the responsibility of historical crime fiction, as well as the literary, cultural and philosophical sources that influence Peace's unique style of what he calls "occult history." The conversation took place on December 15, 2023, and the transcript was subsequently edited and annotated for content and readability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an analysis of C. J. Sansom's Matthew Shardlake novels (2003–2018), considering the fact that both crime and historical fiction may be used to reconceptualise collective memory in subversive ways, and with important implications for both genres. I will attempt to demonstrate that Sansom's narrative illustrates the shift in recent crime fiction from the crime itself to the historical conditions of its setting. As a result, Henrician England is presented as a very different context from that foundational time identified by Whig historiography, thereby questioning the very pillars of Englishness / Britishness that were such a central part of the country's political climate leading up to the Brexit referendum. This is not achieved through the use of any postmodern technique. Instead, the reader perceives a sense of 'neo-historical' authenticity in Sansom's fiction that results from its sensorially approaching the historico-geographical locus of the narrative through the eyes of its anachronistically cosmopolitan stranger protagonist (the lawyer Matthew Shardlake), whose walks and rides through the Tudor city turn the reader into a privileged flâneur, ultimately raising awareness of the subversive power of everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the way of constructing the image of the city in historical crime fiction set in Łódź. The texts analyzed in the article are the novel Perkalowy dybuk [Percale dybbuk] by Konrad T. Lewandowski about the events of 1929, Tramwaj Tanfaniego [Tanfani’s tram] by Marcin Andrzejewski, a novel set in 1905, and Krzysztof Beśka’s trilogy Trzeci brzeg Styksu [The Third Shore of Styx] Pocztówka z Londynu [A Postcard from London] and Dolina popiołów [Valley of Ashes], novels set in the years 1892–1893. All the texts provide an point of departure for showing the image of Łódź at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and in the interwar period, as shaped in the contemporary popular literature. Władysław Reymont’s Ziemia obiecana [The Promised Land] seems to be a starting point for all authors, but in all texts this image borrowed from the fundamental “Łódź text” becomes complicated. It seems that eventually in this unconventional form, which historical crime fiction undoubtedly is, we find a reflection of contemporary dilemmas of the urban space. Its residents try to find their own identity in the meanders of memory and oblivion in the industrial-proletarian past of the “bad city” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The guest editor of Clues 40.1 on historical crime fiction provides a brief history of related scholarship and discusses post-WWI India-set series by Massey and Mukherjee as representative of emerging trends. She previews the issue's articles on mysteries set in China, India, Latin America, Ukraine, and the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This analysis considers recent historical crime novels featuring Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) as an amateur detective who investigates murders alongside her nursing work. Casting Nightingale as an amateur crime solver re-frames her character from the conventional "Lady with the Lamp" to a leader whose skills, feminist ideals, and confidence resonate with modern readers. As an amateur detective or a spy, she emerges as a more nuanced character than the figure constructed by the popular imagination. These novels imagine a version of Nightingale who, confronted with unexpected circumstances, readily masters each situation and employs her deductive skills and mastery of statistics to discover the solution. The Florence Nightingale who penned the proto-feminist essay "Cassandra" and whose determination to use her skills and influence to solve problems, establish order, and heal the community is revealed in these novels for a new generation of readers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the ways in which the life and achievements of Sir John Fielding are reconstructed in contemporary crime fiction in English. The material under scrutiny consists of selected examples of the so-called Georgian crime/mystery, that is, crime narratives set in Georgian England (1714–1837, the reign of George I, George II, George III and George IV). The discussed works include those in which Fielding functions as a secondary character — the series Dr. Sam: Johnson, Detector by Lillian de la Torre and The Demoniacs by John Dickson Carr — as well as those in which he becomes the protagonist — the series Sir John Fielding Mysteries (Bruce Alexander, 1994–2005) and John Rawlings Mysteries (Deryn Lake, 1994–2000). The offered reading of these texts is contextualized historically as well as being informed by Michel Foucault’s ideas put forward in Discipline and punish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a translation of an extract from Thanh-Van Tran-Nhut’s 2009 crime novel, L’Esprit de la renarde (Spirit of the Vixen, Paris: Picquier Poche), the fifth of eight in the Mandarin Tân series of investigations carried out in 17th-century Vietnam (then called Dai Viêt). An introductory note assists in setting the scene and briefly outlining some of the translation challenges for the text, notably the range of names used in the original. These vary from the relatively exotic (Madame Liu) to the partly French (Madame Prune) and the fully French (Contemplation Retenue). A partir de la traduction vers l’anglais d’un extrait du polar historique de Thanh-Van Tran-Nhut, L’Esprit de la renarde (2009), le cinquième dans la série des huit romans qui suivent les aventures du Mandarin Tân dans le Viêt-Nam du XVIIe siècle, nous présentons ici quelques réflexions sur la traduction des noms propres. Nous expliquons d’abord le contexte narratif de l’extrait, pour ensuite considérer les défis posés par ce texte, où figurent des noms exotiques pour un lectorat français (tel Madame Liu), des noms déjà ‘traduits’ en partie vers le français (Madame Prune), et des noms entièrement francisés (Contemplation Retenue).

This is a translation of an extract from Thanh-Van Tran-Nhut's 2009 crime novel, L'esprit de la renarde: Une enquête du Mandarin Tân (Spirit of the Vixen), the fifth of eight in the Mandarin Tân series of investigations carried out in 17th-century Vietnam (then called Dai Viêt). An introductory note assists in setting the scene and briefly outlining some of the translation challenges for the text, notably the range of names used in the original. These vary from the relatively exotic (Madame Liu) to the partly French (Madame Prune) and the fully French (Contemplation Retenue). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article evaluates the spatial aspects of historical crime novels located in Ancient Rome. In particular, it demonstrates the image of the Roman Empire and the functions of space. This classic mise-en-sc`ene is completely subordinated to the genre convention. The space becomes not only a background but also a component of various criminal actions. Unlike in Agatha Christie’s novels, it does not create an idyllic counterpoint to the murderous instincts of Roman citizens. The article concentrates on the form of historical crime fiction, in which all elements are subordinated to the attractiveness of intrigue. However, it also refers to the cognitive ambitions of the historical novel. So the question is what the reader learns about the SPQR of the declining Republic or about Vespasian Rome. First and foremost, it is the vivid image of the metropolis - chaotic, eclectic and vital. It is the world in a state of territorial expansion. Contrary to the assumption shared by Ryszard Koziołek with David Lowenthal that the past is the domain of otherness and that the difference generates incomprehensibility, this picture seems to be extremely familiar and understandable. This is probably due to the fact that the foreignness of “Romanity” has been familiarized in popular culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until the present millennium, very little creative literary writing in either English or Spanish had been published in the British colonial enclave of Gibraltar. Given the small population size of the autonomous community of some 30,000 people, it was considered unlikely that a “national” literary culture could form. In the course of the past decade, a handful of dedicated writers have published a noticeable amount of fiction, all of which is concerned with establishing a recognized Gibraltarian literary identity. The present article, while not arguing for the permanence of a Gibraltarian national literary culture, attempts to trace some of the ways in which a small, unified, geopolitical territory has attempted to tell its own story.

The Enlightenment inspired the Polish post-war authors to create thriller fables in different ways: first of all, there were attempts to literary work out authentic histories, then some authors "revealed" alleged inside stories of real events, finally some stories presented completely fictional episodes set in the realities of Polish, sometimes also European, Age of Enlightenment. The vision of the epoque, based on historical sources and studies, is most often rather stereotypical and illustrative in character, but nothing else should be expected in the popular literature. If there are any attempts to revise the view of that times, they refer only to the traditions of popular literature as well (like in the novel "Choć nas potępiają umysły zacięte..." written by Jerzy Siewierski, which clearly refers polemically to Aleksander Dumas' "Diaries of a Doctor"). Except historical studies, diaries and other sources, also the literature of the Enlightenment is used in different ways. There are quotes or crypto-quotes in the plot, characters often read books that were popular in that times, we can also recognize features of some characters as typical for satire, comedy or novel of the Enlightenment Ages. Sometimes the narrative-fictional patterns of the eighteenthcentury novel are used as literary allusion. However, the most interesting works are the ones in which authors managed not only to compare a sensational, spy or criminal episode to the realities of the epoque, but also make elements of "the Spirit of the Enlightenment" an integral part of that plot. It is especially visible in the novels of Siewierski's or Jerzy Piechowski's. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]