Crime fiction is nowadays considered as a thought-provoking

challenge to the writing of any text,

whatever its genre. In novels by Arthur Conan

Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson and Agatha Christie the

frontiers between genres are already shown as being

porous, and the integration of one genre within another

can open onto contradictory readings and interpretations.

In contemporary novels by Thomas Pynchon, Charles

Palliser, James Ellroy, John Grisham, Max Dorra and

Peter Lovesey, the genre is destabilised in various

ways via the invention of new strategies or the denial

of any final resolution. The cinematographie genre also

offers challenging innovations through the specific features

of whodunnits and "films noirs". Through the analysis of

specific works, this volume focuses on the evolution of crime

fiction, on the blurring of its contours and on the subversion

of its codes in English and American novels and films.