Back-Room Boy (1942).

In Back-Room Boy, a BBC employee sent to a remote Scottish island faces an influx of models and Nazi spies.

Clues 36.2: Atkinson, Conan Doyle, Chandler, Hammett, Macdonald, and a noir graphic novel.

Vol. 36, no. 2 (2018), of Clues: A Journal of Detection has been published. Contact McFarland to order the issue or a subscription. For e-versions: visit the Kindle link, the Nook link, or the Google Play link).

To keep up to date on Clues, subscribe to the new RSS feed for the Clues tables of contents, or visit the Clues website. There is currently a call for papers on interwar mysteries (submission deadline: October 12, 2018).

Introduction  JANICE M. ALLAN (Univ of Salford)

Transvestism and Transgender in the Crime Fiction of Andrea G. Pinketts BARBARA PEZZOTTI (Monash Univ)
This article focuses on the figure of the transvestite and the treatment of transgender in the novels of Italian crime writer Andrea G. Pinketts. The aim is to determine whether Pinketts’s highly entertaining, parodic hard-boiled series succeeds in subverting a traditional discourse on transvestism and transgender in Italian crime fiction.

Bending the Genre: Portraying the Genders of Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey in the Detective Fiction of Dorothy L. Sayers SALLY BERESFORD-SHERIDAN (Univ of Waterloo)
This essay explores how the fictional female detective of Dorothy L. Sayers works outside normative gender conventions of the interwar years. By positing a female character who can become a detective, Sayers allows both Harriet Vane and Peter Wimsey to break and redefine social expectations of masculine behaviors, feminine behaviors, and gender stereotypes.

Cherchez la Femme: A Good Woman’s Place in Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction KELI MASTEN (Western Michigan Univ)
Hard-boiled detective fiction often limits women to the roles of femme fatale or love interest of the detective. However, Effie Perine (Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon) and Anne Riordan (Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely) embody the femme fiable (“dependable woman”), a survivor who goes where the detective cannot and avoids the fate of the femme fatale.

Scotland Yard Investigator (1946).

In Scotland Yard Investigator, a German collector plans a heist when the Mona Lisa is moved to England for safekeeping during World War II. C. Aubrey Smith, Erich von Stroheim, and Stephanie Bachelor costar.

ABA Journal's 25 greatest legal movies.

As the Law & Humanities blog highlights, the ABA Journal has selected the 25 Greatest Legal Movies. Its choices include Criminal Court (1946), The Lincoln Lawyer (based on the book by Michael Connelly, 2011), Loving (2016), Michael Clayton (2007), The Post (2017), Spotlight (2015), and 12 Angry Men (1957).

Bedelia (writ. Vera Caspary, 1946).

In Bedelia, a new bride (Margaret Lockwood) is suspected of bumping off her previous husbands for their insurance money, and the question is whether current husband Ian Hunter is at risk. Vera Caspary wrote the novel and collaborated on the screenplay. Jill Esmond (the first wife of Laurence Olivier) costars.

Taipei's mystery bookstore.

This article in China Daily discusses Murder Ink, one of the small number of bookstores in Taiwan that focuses primarily on detective novels. Despite the enthusiasm of owner and translator Tommy Tan, his store only serves a few customers per day.

Inquest (1939).

When a woman is accused of killing her husband, a courtroom battle ensues between her barrister and the coroner. Directed by Ray Boulting, the film is based on the play of the same name by Michael Barringer.