Crimeculture has greatly benefited from the contributions of academics and writers working in Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia and elsewhere. Amongst our contributors, we are particularly indebted to the novelists Allan Guthrie, Ray Banks, Bill Crider and Jason Starr; and to such critics as Christopher Pittard, Newcastle University;David Schmid, University at Buffalo; Philippa Gates, Wilfrid Laurier University; Arthur M. Fried, Plymouth State University; Sue Neale, University of Warwick; Vicky Munro, University of Minnesota; Jamaluddin Bin Aziz, University Science of Malaysia; Neddal Ayad, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador; and Roger Westcombe, the founding President of the Big House Film Society.
Ray Banks‘s first novel, The Big Blind (PointBlank Press, 2004) draws on this croupier experience. His second novel,Saturday’s Child (Polygon, 2006), introduces wayward private investigator Cal Innes, who had previously made his debut in one of Ray’s short stories. The Innes series continues with Donkey Punch and No More Heroes, both to be published by Polygon in 2007, with the fourth Innes novel, Beast of Burden, was published in 2009.
Arthur Fried is a professor of English at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire, where he teaches courses in literature and film. He has taught at Plymouth State since 1982. He is interested in the historical development of the various popular media, and in relating their development to the social, political and economic trends of their time. He has been a fan of comic books and comic strips since he learned to read.
Philippa Gates is an Associate Professor in Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. Her recent publications include Detecting Men: Masculinity and the Hollywood Detective Film (SUNY Press, 2006) and the co-edited collection The Devil Himself: Villainy in Detective Fiction and Film (Greenwood Press, 2002), as well as articles on aging action stars, the female detective in film noir, the film versions of The Maltese Falcon, and the contemporary Hollywood war film.
Allan Guthrie‘s debut novel, Two-Way Split, was shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger award and went on to win the Theakston’s Crime Novel Of The Year. He’s the author of four other novels: Kiss Her Goodbye (nominated for an Edgar), Hard Man, Savage Night and Slammer and three novellas: Kill Clock , Killing Mum and Bye Bye Baby, a Top Ten Kindle Bestseller. He’s also a co-founder (with Kyle “Smudge” MacRae) of digital publishing company, Blasted Heath, and a literary agent with Jenny Brown Associates.
Vicky Munro is one of our True Crime experts. She is an American Studies specialist at the University of Minnesota. Her PhD dissertation covered true crime books, newspaper/magazine treatments of crime, television shows and political rhetoric. She is currently a Research-Graduate School Administrator at the University of Minnesota.
Sue Neale is a doctoral student in the Department of French Studies at Warwick University. Her research concentrates on the alternative visions of French society in the fictions of archaeozoologist Fred Vargas. Sue has previously published papers on Daniel Pennac and Fred Vargas, and given papers at crime fiction conferences in Limerick (2007) and Newcastle (2008). In her spare time she is involved on the British editorial team of europolar.eu – a European crime fiction website.
Christopher Pittard is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Portsmouth. He has published widely on Victorian and popular culture, including contributions to The Oxford History of the Novel in English 1880-1940 (2010),Victorian Periodicals Review, Clues: A Journal of Detection and Women: A Cultural Review. His work on Victorian crime narratives won the 2006 VanArsdel Prize for Victorian periodicals research, and will appear in his forthcoming book Purity and Contamination in Late Victorian Detective Fiction (Ashgate, 2011).
David Schmid is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University at Buffalo, where he teaches courses in British and American fiction, cultural studies, and popular culture. He has published on a variety of subjects, including the nonfiction novel, celebrity, and film adaptation and is the author of Natural Born Celebrities: Serial Killers in American Culture (2005). He is currently working on a book entitled From the Locked Room to the Globe: Space in Crime Fiction.
Jason Starr is the author of Cold Caller, Nothing Personal, Fake I.D., Hard Feelings, Tough Luck and Twisted City. He lives with his wife and daughter in New York City. Twisted City, was published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard in May 2004 and was published in the UK by No Exit Press in March 2005. His subsequent novels include Lights Out (2006), The Follower (2007), and Panic Attack (2009).