Why do true crime stories exert such popular fascination? What do they have to say about the fear of crime in the present moment? This book examines the historical origins and development of true crime and its evolution into distinctive contemporary forms. Embracing a range of non-fiction accounts - true crime book and magazines, law and order television, popular journalism - it traces how they harness and explore current concerns about law and order, crime and punishment and personal vulnerability.

Autorentext

ANITA BIRESSI is a Lecturer in Media Studies at the Department of Arts and Media, Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College.

Inhalt

Preface Acknowledgements PART ONE: TRUE CRIME: ISSUES, HISTORIES, CONTEXTS Introduction 'True Stories Only' Histories of True Crime Discourses of Law and Order in Modern Britain PART TWO: TRUE CRIME: STORIES, BODIES, CRIMINALS Crime Magazine Stories: From American Idiom to an English Vernacular Period True Crime: History from Below? Daring to Know: Looking at the Body in the New True Crime Magazine Figure in a Landscape: The Dangerous Individual in Criminal Biography Bibliography Index