American Literature's War on Crime

Pulling together a rich and eclectic archive of texts, Theodore Martin reads across multiple genres of crime fiction to narrate a wholly original account of one of the most pivotal yet taken-for-granted episodes of the late twentieth century, the rise of American mass imprisonment. With rigorous analysis and lively prose, American Literature’s War on Crime shows in luminous detail the ways that crime fiction was shaped by and in turn shaped decades of disastrous crime policy. This first of its kind volume promises to draw audiences capacious as the scope of its own argument. A remarkable achievement. -- Travis Linnemann, author of The Horror of Police
Theodore Martin deftly illustrates how crime fiction helped inaugurate and maintain mass incarceration in the postwar decades. With breathtaking scope, American Literature's War on Crime argues convincingly that detective novels, vigilante narratives, and serial killer stories were instrumental to changes in policing and public policy. A remarkable book. -- Justin Gifford, author of Revolution or Death: The Story of Eldridge Cleaver
A remarkable, in-depth study of the relationship between social unrest and the logic of literary works, American Literature’s War on Crime investigates crime fiction as a site of unrelenting debate about carceral politics and racism in the criminal justice system. Martin’s impressive book flouts distinctions between prestige and pulp to show how literature helps us make sense of why we repeatedly choose mass incarceration as the solution to the “War on Crime.” -- Michelle Robinson, author of Dreams for Dead Bodies: Blackness, Labor and the Corpus of Detective Fiction