Antiques and women are really the only things that I'm interested in. Getting them in the right order can be a problem, because even a fake antique can be absolutely fascination - especially if it drives someone to commit murder. Antiques and women are what led me to Venice on the trail of the killer, and there my modest talents saw me blagging my way into a job as a tour guide as well as lending a hand as a sculptor. My credentials as a tour guide were as bogus as the forgery I was chiselling and it becan to feel like everywhere I turned, nothing was as it seemed. Antiques and women almost got me killed when the bullets started flying . . .
Antiques and women are really the only things that I'm interested in. Getting them in the right order can be a problem, because even a fake antique can be absolutely fascination - especially if it drives someone to commit murder. Antiques and women are what led me to Venice on the trail of the killer, and there my modest talents saw me blagging my way into a job as a tour guide as well as lending a hand as a sculptor. My credentials as a tour guide were as bogus as the forgery I was chiselling and it becan to feel like everywhere I turned, nothing was as it seemed. Antiques and women almost got me killed when the bullets started flying . . .
Bruce Murphy's Encyclopedia of Murder and Mystery is a comprehensive guide to the genre of the murder mystery that catalogues thousands of items in a broad range of categories: authors, titles, plots, characters, weapons, methods of killing, movie and theatrical adaptations. What distinguishes this encyclopedia from the others in the field is its critical stance.
“An innovative and original study that sheds light on masculinity, youth culture, performative violence, and the circuit of global imagery.” —Stephan F. Miescher, author of Making Men in Ghana During the 1950s and 60s in the Congo city of Kinshasa, there emerged young urban male gangs known as “Bills” or “Yankees.” Modeling themselves on the images of the iconic American cowboy from Hollywood film, the Bills sought to negotiate lives lived under oppressive economic, social, and political conditions. They developed their own style, subculture, and slang and as Ch. Didier Gondola shows, engaged in a quest for manhood through bodybuilding, marijuana, violent sexual behavior, and other transgressive acts. Gondola argues that this street culture became a backdrop for Congo-Zaire’s emergence as an independent nation and continues to exert powerful influence on the country’s urban youth culture today. “Aligns social banditry with popular cultural formations and subcultures. This has been a longstanding feature of Didier Gondola’s scholarship that is of great interest.” —Peter J. Bloom, University of California, Santa Barbara “Its approach in terms of poverty and unemployment combined with a subtle interest in performance and the creation of an original culture makes this book an eye-opener. Both the dramatic subject and the author’s vivid style make it a pleasure to read and also food for thought regarding issues that haunt not only Africa but also the world at large.” —American Historical Review
