Detective fiction and the critical-creative nexus

This article aims to put a theoretical frame around the concept of the critical-creative nexus as it manifests itself in detective fiction. It argues that critical and creative practices in the context of detective fiction, and by extension in popular literature in general, are deeply interconnected: the writing of detective fiction always involves a critical positioning in relation to established genre conventions, while, conversely, detective fiction criticism, and certainly its most important exempla, involves an element of the creative, stretching from imaginative readings to a complete critical rewriting of the individual story. The article concludes by suggesting that the concept of the critical creative nexus results in a new understanding of detective fiction as an inherently mobile genre constantly in the process of reinventing itself.