Douthwaite selects the television series Inspector George Gently as an exemplification of critical crime fiction in order to lay bare the ideological workings of that sub-genre and of the linguistic techniques it employs to position readers/viewers, offering an overview of the constructional techniques deployed together with close readings of the texts to bear out the arguments. A continual comparison is made with Graham’s novels and the Midsomer Murders television series to demonstrate how differences in constructional techniques and the use of linguistic devices aiming to position viewers constitute a clear difference between the goals of conservative and critical crime fiction.

Douthwaite takes Graham’s novel Written in Blood and the Midsomer Murders TV series as a prototypical representative of conservative crime fiction to lay bare the ideological workings of that sub-genre and of the linguistic techniques it employs to position readers/viewers, offering close readings of the texts to bear out the arguments. In so doing he deploys all the analytical tools stylistics offers the analyst.

Introduces the volume, identifying themes, methodology and goals; positions it in relation to other works; and outlines the chapters and their running order as well as those features that unite chapters or lead from one to the next.