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Focusing on crime fiction and films that artfully combine comedy and misdeed, this book explores the reasons writers and filmmakers inject humor into their work and identifies the various comic techniques they use. The author covers both American and European books from the 1930s to the present, by such authors as Rex Stout, Raymond Chandler, Robert B. Parker, Elmore Leonard, Donald E. Westlake, Sue Grafton, Carl Hiaasen and Janet Evanovich, along with films from The Thin Man to the BBC's Sherlock series.
List of contents
Table of ContentsPreface
Introduction
Part I: Crime Fiction delete21¿
Rex Stout (1886-1975)
Jonathan Latimer (1906-1983)
Raymond Chandler (1888-1959)
Craig Rice (1908-1957)
Norbert Davis (1909-1949)
Edmund Crispin (1921-1978)
Ed McBain (1926-2005)
Donald E. Westlake (1933-2008)
Joseph Wambaugh (1937-)
Robert B. Parker (1932-2010)
Elmore Leonard (1925-2013)
William Marshall (1944-)
Simon Brett (1945-)
Lawrence Block (1938-)
Martha Grimes (1931-)
Sue Grafton (1940-)
Kinky Friedman (1944-)
Carl Hiaasen (1953-)
Joan Hess (1949-)
Janet Evanovich (1943-)
Andrea Camilleri (1925-)
Colin Bateman (1962-)
Fred Vargas (1957-)
Ken Bruen (1951-)
Alexander McCall Smith (1948-)
Ben Rehder (1965-)
Christopher Fowler (1953-)
Craig Johnson (1961-)
Lisa Lutz (1970-)
Timothy Hallinan (1949-)
¿¿Part II: Crime Films
Killers, Crooks, Kidnappers
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
Too Many Crooks (1959)
Take the Money and Run (1969)
Raising Arizona (1987)
A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
Miami Blues (1990)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Get Shorty (1995)
Jackie Brown (1997)
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking
Barrels (1998) and Snatch (2000)
Bandits (2001)
In Bruges (2008)
Heist/Caper Films
The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)
The Ladykillers (1956)
Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958)
Topkapi (1964)
How to Steal a Million (1966)
The Italian Job (1969 and 2003)
The Sting (1973)
Bottle Rocket (1996)
Fargo (1996)
Ocean's Eleven (2001)
Cops
A Shot in the Dark (1964)
Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
The Guard (2011)
Detectives, Amateur and Private
The Thin Man (1934)
Murder by Death (1976) and
The Cheap Detective (1978)
Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
Sherlock (BBC, 2010-) 184¿
Bibliography
Index
About the author
David Geherin, a professor emeritus of English at Eastern Michigan University, is the author of ten books on crime fiction, two of which were finalists for the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Allan Poe Award. He lives in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
