At the heart of crime fiction is an investigation into an act of violence. Studies of the genre have generally centered on the relationship between the criminal and the investigator. Focusing on contemporary crime fiction from the Spanish-speaking world, this collection of new essays explores the role of the victim. Contributors discuss how the definition of "victim," the nature of the crime, the identification of the body and its treatment by authorities reflect shifting social landscapes, changing demographics, economic crises and political corruption and instability.

With its focus on recent detective series featuring female investigators, this collection analyzes the authors’ treatment of current social, political and economic problems in Spain and beyond, in addition to exploring interrelations between gender, globalization, the environment and technology. The contributions here reveal the varied ways in which the use of a series allows for a deeper consideration of such issues, in addition to permitting the more extensive development of the protagonist investigator and her reactions to, and methods of, dealing with personal and professional challenges of the twenty-first century. In these stories, the authors employ strategies that break with long-standing conventions, developing crime fiction in unexpected ways, incorporating elements of science fiction, the supernatural, and the historical novel, as well as varied geographical settings (small towns, provincial cities, and rural communities) beyond the urban environment, all of which contributes to the reinvigoration of the genre.

This study examines representations of the cityscape and of a so-called "new urban violence" in both detective-centered and detectiveless crime fiction produced in Spanish America and Spain during recent decades. It documents the emergence and permutations of this production as an index not only of local perceptions of contemporary urban experience and of a contemporary urban "ecology of fear," but also as a transnational index of the globalization of literary forms and markets. It centers on the inscription of urban space in novels set in the metropolitan centers of the Hispanic World: Mexico City, Bogota, Buenos Aires, and Barcelona.

Engaging with pre-feminist and male-authored crime literature, Resisting Invisibility offers a comparative reading of women’s bodies as represented in Spanish crime literature from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Utilizing the twin concepts of visibility and invisibility, the book establishes a genealogy of differing viewpoints regarding women’s positions in these narratives, before and after the birth of the modern Spanish female detective. This examination of the politics of female visibility expands our understanding of the aesthetic regimes that have governed the female body from the early phases of the genre’s evolution. While most scholars understand the feminization of the crime genre as a response to second-wave feminism, Resisting Invisibility demonstrates that even in the earliest representations of delinquent women, the politics surrounding the female body are problematized and are more complex than previously conceptualized. Drawing on gender and queer studies, Resisting Invisibility investigates the gendering of crime fiction, forcing us to reconsider the literary history of female visibility and prompting us to establish an alternative genealogy for Spanish crime literature.

Publisher's description: What are the effects that violent crime has on our everyday lives, both in terms of the individual victims and their larger community? This unique text draws from both the fields of criminology and psychology to provide a comprehensive examination of the two major areas that are most significantly effected by violent crime - the crime victims themselves and the larger sphere of their families, friends, neighborhoods, and communities. Beginning with a discussion of the how we measure and study violent victimization, the authors R. Barry Ruback and Martie P. Thompson, look at the immediate and long-term impact violent acts has upon the direct victims. Social and Psychological Consequences of Violent Victimization examines "secondary victims"--Family members, neighbors, friends, and the professional involved with investigating and prosecuting the crime and helping the victim, and also impacts of violent crime on neighborhoods and communities. The authors conclude with recommendations of effective interventions that can be made at the levels of the individual, the community, and the criminal justice and mental health systems. This book's one-of-a kind focus on both the psychological and social impact of crime makes it an invaluable supplementary text for criminal justice and criminology courses dealing with victimization, violent crimes, and the criminal justice process. The book will also interest professionals in victim services, crime prevention, criminal justice, and social work.

Focuses on women's crime writing from Spain and offers an approach to Spanish crime fiction, combining literary criticism with sociological and criminological theory. This multidisciplinary study analyses how female authors use crime and detective genres to analyse the role and position of their countrywomen.

Crime fiction written by women in Spain and Latin America since the late 1980s has been successful in shifting attention to crimes often overlooked by their male counterparts, such as rape and sexual battery, domestic violence, child pornography, pederasty, and incest. In the twenty-first century, social, economic, and political issues, including institutional corruption, class inequality, criminalized oppression of immigrant women, crass capitalist market forces, and mediatized political and religious bodies, have at their core a gendered dimension. The conventions of the original noir, or novela negra, genre have evolved, such that some women authors challenge the noir formulas by foregrounding gender concerns while others imagine new models of crime fiction that depart drastically from the old paradigms. This volume, highlighting such evolution in the crime fiction genre, will be of interest to students, teachers, and scholars of crime fiction in Latin America and Spain, to those interested in crime fiction by women, and to readers familiar with the sub-genres of crime fiction, which include noir, the thriller, the police procedural, and the “cozy” novel.