Hardboiled Crime Stories
Forms of Culture and Relations with the Public
By Dominique ManottiEnglish
This essay looks at American crime stories (from dime novels to pulps and to the hardboiled school) and at their French counterparts which emerged after 1968. Crime is rooted in society. The individual is not the only criminal, it is also the world of law and order. The restoration of public order is seen as precarious and often as mere semblance.