This book reveals subversive representations of gender, race and class in detective dime novels (1860-1915), arguing that inherent tensions between subversive and conservative impulses-theorized as contamination and containment-explain detective fiction's ongoing popular appeal to readers and to writers such as Twain and Faulkner.
"It is very rare to come across work that one can describe accurately as original. Happily, this is one such occasion. The author makes an original and important argument about the relation between dime novels and American detective fiction that will have a major impact upon the field." - Garyn G. Roberts, Northwestern Michigan College, USA.