MAJOR NARRATIVE FORMATS OF CRIME FICTION

on several factors. For the sake of brevity and practical reasons, this study agrees with the notion that crime fiction has a long history but seeks to dwell on the early developments that lay the groundwork for the appearance of thriller genre in general and legal thriller in particular. Therefore, it is of vital importance to provide the specific historical evolution of crime fiction and elements that exerted major influence on the rise and development of both thriller and legal thriller, which are considered to be parts of crime fiction before making their definition.

who in turn had immense repercussions on the subsequent works to be authored by various writers of crime fiction. Horsley (2005, p. 12) claims that Sherlock Holmes by Doyle is the most famous figure in the tradition that had a great number of descendants such as the Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton, Hercule Poirot by Agatha Christie and Lord Peter Wimsey by Dorothy L. Sayers. Moreover, he suggests that these successors of Doyle from the late 20th century to the golden age, which is considered to be the heyday of classic detective fiction tradition in the interwar period constantly refer to the image of the great “Holmesian” detective (Horsley, 2005, p. 7).

It is necessary to admit that there are various labels coined to refer to the works of the classic detective fiction such as “analytic detective fiction‖, ‗whodunit‘, ―the mystery story‖ or “the clue-puzzle story‖. However, Horsley (2005, p. 12) states that they all refer to the basic composition of the subgenre and have more or less the same structure in common regarding its typical pattern of death–detection–explanation.

For the sake of consistency, the label whodunit will be used to refer to the works of detective fiction authored by the authors following Doyle‟s footsteps such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers. Horsley (2005, p. 12) defines “whodunnit” as a tradition of crime writing that focuses the attention of readers on the solution process of a crime by a brilliant detective that baffle the ordinary minds. In addition, Messent (2012, p. 20) describes it as “backward-looking, with the detective engaged in solving a crime (usually) committed either before or soon after the chronological start of the text – and with much of its focus on his or her analytic skills in recovering and recreating the backstory of that crime and the motives of the criminal(s) involved”.

Mandel (1984), on the other hand, calls attention to the difference between the first detective stories and the whodunnit in terms of fiction. He states that the streets of London and Paris once frequented by Holmes, Lecoq and Lupin were replaced by the isolated country houses and rich drawing rooms with the advent of the whodunnit.

Moreover, he emphasizes a striking difference between them in that the first detective stories deals with murderers that still had some relation to real, dangerous criminals as well as with real crimes committed in the “slums and red-light districts” whereas whodunnit deals with “shadowy, abstract, and make-believe”.crimes (p. 27).

It would be incomplete to leave a host of whodunit writers unmentioned in the early 20th century such as Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, G. K. Chesterton due to their

invaluable and countless number of whodunits that have had impact on its development today. Moreover, it should be noted here that the hardboiled fiction was born mostly as a reaction to the classical detective fiction. Finally, it would be out of the scope of this study to dwell more on both the characteristics of the whodunit and authors. Therefore, it is necessary to keep the review brief here and shift our focus to the hard-boiled fiction, which is assumed to have made a major contribution to the rise of crime thriller.

1.4.2. Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction

Cawelti (1977, p. 139) refers to the appearance of a new form of crime fiction in the early 1920s that is so different from the classical detective fiction that it formed a distinct kind. This new detective story formula could be labeled “hard-boiled”. Scaggs (2005) defines the term „hard-boiled‟, meaning „tough‟ or „shrewd‟, as a description to refer to the kind of detective fiction that developed in the US. in the interwar period, adding that the classical detective fiction, also named as whodunnit, focuses on the crime taking place in an isolated rural place and committed mainly via individual revenge or greed. Moreover he states that the detection of crimes is usually done as a puzzlework by a respectable middle- or upper-class investigator using analytical skills.

However, the plot and setting of the stories produced under this subgeneric fiction usually follow similar paths. In reaction to this similar and repetitive stories, there emerged another subgeneric fiction, i.e. hard-boiled that focuses on social corruption such as violence and gritty realism taking place in urban settings (p. 55). He also states that this new form of crime writing customarily does not make any appeal to logic and reason as the classical detective fiction but focuses on the detective characterized by aggression (Scaggs, 2005, pp. 27-28). In addition, he claims that it is the detective hero as the loner fighting against social corruption that characterizes the hard-boiled fiction (Scaggs, 2005, p. 64).

It is of vital importance to provide some information regarding the developments in crime fiction from the late 20th century onwards in order to gain a more thorough insight into the rise of the crime thriller in general and legal thriller in particular. This study shall, for the sake of brevity and precision, touch on the rise and development of hard-boiled fiction as a reaction to the classical detective fiction from the early 20th

century. Moreover, it seeks to shed light on the exclusive contribution of the hard-boiled fiction to the rise of crime thrillers since the emergence of Black Mask tradition between the 1920s and 1930s.

It is therefore necessary to point to the endeavours of publishers to resuscitate the losing interest in crime fiction among readers of dime novels by creating new forms with relatively cheaper prices in the early 20th century. As a result, inexpensive fiction magazines began to be published on cheap wood pulp papers, which is why the new format was named as pulp magazines. Üyepazarcı (2008) asserts that the content quality of the pulp magazines are far greater than dime novels. He also contends that the stories in pulp magazines cannot be considered of escapist nature and they mainly deal with both injustice and the emerging social changes, adding that the creation of the hard-boiled fiction started in pulp magazines (p. 111). Similarly, Winks (1988, p.

104) refers to the reaction of hard-boiled writers against the limited formula of dime novels, which led them to give up on the static, the complex puzzle, elaborate reasonings and adopt a distinct detective story featuring colloquial language, the swift action and the violence.

Mandel (1984, p. 35) refers to Chandler‟s critical essay „The Simple Art of Murder‟, in which he is assumed to have theorized the turn by dating the beginning with Hammett‟s work. Moreover, he points to the shift of change between the classical detective stories based on individual motives such as revenge, greed and the hard-boiled detective stories dealing with social corruption, impact of organized gangsterism and the changing bourgeois values caused by the first world war (p. 35). Symons (1985, p.

124) states that there were quite a lot pulp magazines; however, Black Mask under Captain Joseph T. Shaw‟s editorship, which was a monthly magazine founded in 1920 and continuing in print until 1951 remained the most notable from 1926 to 1936.

Likewise, Scaggs (2005, p. 29) points to the immense role that Black Mask magazine played in the development of hard-boiled fiction, in which both Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler published their hard-boiled stories as the foremost early practitioners of the tradition.

Horsley (2010) asserts that the American detective fiction from the 1920s much more directly reflected the unease and worries of the postwar society, adding that this kind of fiction mainly required tough private eyes who deal with crimes in violent and corrupt

places. Moreover, he considers dime novels, the frontier romance and Westerns as the antecedents of hard-boiled writing; however, he claims that it is the establishment of Black Mask magazine in 1920 that inseparably contributed its development as a subgeneric form of crime fictio (p. 32). Besides, Bertens and D'haen (2001) mention an amalgam of circumstances that led to the rise of the American hard-boiled detective fiction such as the rise of the Soviet Union causing fear among America‟s white middle class, tremendous immigration waves from Europe between the late 19th century and the First World War, The Crash of 1929 and the subsequent outbreak of the Great Depression, claiming that these circumstances are clearly identified in the pulp fiction of that period (pp. 175-176).

It is worth mentioning a few of the most influential authors whose works were published in Black Mask. For example, Dashiell Hammett, who created Sam Spade and The Continental Op, Raymond Chandler with his several famous works along with his critical and groundbreaking essay “The Simple Art of Murder” and Erle Stanley Gardner with Perry Mason series, who would have immense impacts on the rise of the legal thriller genre, to name but a few. Uyepazarcı (2008, p. 123) asserts that hard-boiled fiction is more prone to the appropriation of more authentic and artistic works than classical detective fiction as it is not constricted by certain limitations. Similarly, Scaggs (2005, p. 84) claims that the ease of its appropriation has led to the rise of another strand termed as crime-thriller by Priestman, which focuses more on the crime and criminal than its solution as a mystery. It is necessary to mention the significant contribution of the spy fiction to the legal thriller even though both genres might sound unrelated at first sight. Seed (2010, p. 233) refers to the common characteristics of detective fiction shared by spy fiction such as prioritizing investigation, the use of aliases and made-up identities It should be noted that Buchan has exerted a considerable influence as the creator of spy thriller and his introduction of the double antagonist, namely, the battle of the hero against the villain and legal authorities to settle the problem, with which every litigator is familiar (Robinson, 2009, para. 19).

Furthermore, Scaggs (2005, p. 120) claims that spy thrillers did not cease to exist following the end of the Cold War in 1989, adding that the legal thriller is a development of the spy thriller with a shift from military and political act of espionage towards corporate espionage.