Patricia Cornwell's "Unnatural Exposure" and the Representation of Space: Changing Patterns in Crime Fiction.(Critical Essay)

The representation of space, and particularly of city space, is of crucial importance in American hard-boiled detective fiction. In this article, I first map the normative relationship between the detective and that urban landscape which he or she inhabits, using the work of Walter Benjamin, Michel de Certeau and Steve Pile as my critical base. I then examine the Patricia Cornwell novel, Unnatural in all senses (1997), to illustrate in what manner in this particular contemporary crime novel, of the like kind relationships are subject to considerable alteration. The impact of sophisticated fashions of detection ...