This study of crime and masquerade in fiction focuses upon the criminal as a 'performer'. Through stimulating discussions of a wide range of criminal types, Peach argues for the importance of novels that have been neglected. The book integrates incisive literary and cultural criticism with arguments about gender, masquerade, crime and culture.

LINDEN PEACH is Professor and Dean of Arts and Social Sciences at Northumbria University, UK. He was previously Professor of Modern Literature at the Universities of Gloucestershire and Loughborough. His previous publications include studies of Virginia Woolf, Angela Carter and the contemporary Irish novel.

Preface Acknowledgements Mocking Modernity Gender and Performance in the Criminal Masquerade The Cadaver as Criminalised Text Where does that Criminality Come From? Women in a Criminalising Modernity Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Sara Paretsky: The New Woman Masquerade, Criminality and Desire in Toni Morrison's Fiction Writing the Serial and Callous Killer into (Post) Modernity Conclusion Notes Index