Books in the McFarland Companions to Mystery Fiction series

This comprehensive guide to James Ellroy's work and life is arranged as an encyclopedia covering his entire career, from his first private-eye novel, Brown's Requiem, to his 2012 e-book Shakedown. It introduces new readers to his characters and plots, and provides experienced Ellroy fans and scholars with detailed analyses of the themes, motifs and stylistic innovations of his books. The work is a tour of Ellroy's dark underworld, highlighting the controversies and unsettling questions that characterize his work, as well as assessing Ellroy's place in the annals of American literature.

British National Health Service employee Phyllis Dorothy James White (1920-2014) reinvented herself at age 38 as P.D. James, crime novelist. She then became long known as England's "Queen of Crime." Sixteen of her 20 novels feature one or both of her series detectives, Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard and private eye Cordelia Gray. Stand-alone works include the dystopian The Children of Men (1992) and Death Comes to Pemberley (2011), a sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. James's careful plotting has earned comparison with Golden Age British detective writers such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers. Yet James's work is thoroughly modern, with realistic descriptions of police procedures and the echoes and aftereffects of crime. This literary companion includes more than 700 encyclopedic entries covering the characters, settings and themes of her published writing, along with a career chronology, chronological and alphabetical listings of her works, and an exhaustive index.

Considered one of the "Queens of Crime", Ngaio Marsh (1895-1982) was a gifted writer and a celebrated author of classic British detective fiction, as well as a successful theatre director. This book explores the fascinating literary world of Dame Ngaio.

Ian Rankin is considered by many to be Scotland's greatest living crime fiction author. This companion - the first to provide a complete look at all of his writings - includes alphabetized entries on Rankin's works, characters, and themes; a biography; a chronology; maps of Rebus' Edinburgh; and an annotated bibliography.