Placing Crime Fiction and Ecology: An Introduction

An ecological approach to crime fiction shifts our focus towards these elements that are so “often dismissed as backdrops to human activity”, prompting an “adjustment of temporalities” and “urging scholars to situate human activity in seasonal, anthropological, evolutionary and deep timescales”. As Stewart King suggests, crime fiction has contributed significantly to certain cultural understandings of place. Initially emerging as a very response to the rapid urban and industrial developments of the nineteenth century, the genre also offered its readers new ways of mapping and overcoming the perceived “unreadability” of the modern metropolis. As Stewart King suggests, crime fiction has contributed significantly to certain cultural understandings of place. Initially emerging as a very response to the rapid urban and industrial developments of the nineteenth century, the genre also offered its readers new ways of mapping and overcoming the perceived “unreadability” of the modern metropolis.