Stacy Gillis

Gerald Heard

Jphn Roger Barrie

"One of the ten best mysteries of all time." -Newsweek Horror strikes when killer bees swarm amok in the seemingly idyllic hamlet of Ashton Clearwater. Even more sinister is the discovery that the angry swarms were programmed to kill by a mad, ingenious apiarist named Heregrove. Leave it to one of the village's honey addicts-the hapless, reclusive Sydney Silchester-to stumble unwittingly onto Heregrove's diabolical scheme. Silchester's sweet tooth leads him to the indomitable Mr. Mycroft, a retired beekeeper possessing an encyclopedic knowledge of bees and a Holmesian penchant for sleuthing. By matching wits and strategies, the persnickety Silchester and the determined Mycroft seek to thwart Heregrove and his stinging minions before they strike again. "We may know whodunit, but the question of 'why' is altogether more disturbing," writes Stacy Gillis, Ph.D., who contributes a new foreword to this reissue of the 1941 detective-fiction classic, A Taste for Honey. Listed among the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstones of essential mystery fiction, H. F. Heard's masterpiece became a runaway bestseller, provoking Baker Street Irregulars founder Christopher Morley to declare it "the most original and enchanting crime story of the year." Loosely adapted into the 1967 movie, "The Deadly Bees," A Taste for Honey is required reading for all Sherlockian aficionados. "More than 30 years before Nicholas Meyer's The Seven Percent Solution opened the floodgates of Sherlockian imitation, H. F. Heard's A Taste for Honey was the first significant book-length Sherlock Holmes pastiche, and it remains one of the very best. This new edition should be welcomed by all lovers of classic detective fiction." -Jon L. Breen, noted mystery writer "H. F. Heard's ... Mr. Mycroft tales ... encompass the style of the 'old-fashioned' mystery. A delightful read.!" -Paul D. Herbert, member Baker Street Irregulars MURDERED BY BEES? Until the last few years, there had been quite a lot of bee-keeping in the Ashton Clearwater district. But lately nobody, except the sinister and solitary Heregroves, had managed to make their bees thrive. This was tiresome for Sydney Silchester who had gone to the country to be on his own and undisturbed by friends and garrulous neighbors. It was even more tiresome for him when Mrs. Heregrove was stung to death by her husband's bees. His situation suddenly became fraught with mysterious terror when he met his extraordinary neighbor, Mr. Mycroft, a scientific apiarist who had made discoveries about Heregrove's bees which pointed to murder on wings. Who is Mr. Mycroft? The true identity of this magnificent, inscrutable old gentleman is a deep secret--but there are echoes of Baker Street in his voice, and a familiar gleam in his eyes that miss no clue. In A Taste for Honey, he meets one of the most sinister murderers of all time, and encounters one of the most fiendishly ingenious murder methods ever devised.--from the back cover of the 1964 Lancer Books paperback edition "I thought I knew all the tricks of the horror trade but I never expected to have my hair stand on end when a bee flew in through an open window... A triumph of ingenuity and horrific simplicity." Boris Karloff ..".the most original and enchanting crime story of the year." Christopher Morley "A veritable triumph of modern mystery...packing plenty of horror." Will Cuppy, The New York Herald Tribune "Slow-moving, whimsical, somewhat weightily allusive, this tale is definitely caviar to the general; in a sense, it may be called a bookman's book." New York Times Book Review "Terrifying...perfectly done...The most original contribution in many years." Vincent Starrett

A Taste for Honey

Gunnthorunn Gudmundsdottir

What is often termed 'Nordic Noir' has dominated detective fiction, film and television internationally for over two decades. But what are the parameters of this genre, both historically and geographically? What is noirish and what is northern about Nordic noir? The foreword and coda in this volume, by two internationally-bestselling writers of crime fiction in the north, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir and Gunnar Staalesen, speak to the social contract undertaken by writers of noir, while the interview with the renowned crime writer Val McDermid adds nuance to our understanding of what it is to write noir in the North. Divided into four sections – Gender and Sexuality, Space and Place, Politics and Crime, and Genre and Genealogy – Noir in the North challenges the traditional critical histories of noir by investigating how it functions transnationally beyond the geographical borders of Scandinavia. The essays in this book deepen our critical understanding of noir more generally by demonstrating, for example, Nordic noir's connection to fin-de-siècle literatures and to mid-century interior design, and by investigating the function of the state in crime fiction.

Genre, Politics and Place

Noir in the North

Philippa Gates

A study of the role of the villain in detective fiction and film.

Villainy in Detective Fiction and Film

The Devil Himself

Joanne Hollows

The relationship between feminism and domesticity has recently come in for renewed interest in popular culture. This collection makes an intervention into the debates surrounding feminism’s contentious relationship with domesticity and domestic femininities in popular culture. It offers an understanding of the place of domesticity in contemporary popular culture whilst considering how these domesticities might be understood from a feminist perspective. All the essays contribute to a more complex understanding of the relationships between feminism, femininity and domesticity, developing new ways of theorizing these relationships that have marked much of feminist history. Essay topics include Marguerite Patten, reality television shows like How Clean is Your House?, the figure of the maid in contemporary American cinema, aging or widowed domestic femininities, and the relationship between domesticity and motherhood.

Feminism, Domesticity and Popular Culture

What is often termed 'Nordic Noir' has dominated detective fiction, film and television internationally for over two decades. But what are the parameters of this genre, both historically and geographically? What is noirish and what is northern about Nordic noir? The foreword and coda in this volume, by two internationally-bestselling writers of crime fiction in the north, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir and Gunnar Staalesen, speak to the social contract undertaken by writers of noir, while the interview with the renowned crime writer Val McDermid adds nuance to our understanding of what it is to write noir in the North. Divided into four sections  Gender and Sexuality, Space and Place, Politics and Crime, and Genre and Genealogy  Noir in the North challenges the traditional critical histories of noir by investigating how it functions transnationally beyond the geographical borders of Scandinavia. The essays in this book deepen our critical understanding of noir more generally by demonstrating, for example, Nordic noir's connection to fin-de-siècle literatures and to mid-century interior design, and by investigating the function of the state in crime fiction.

This is a collection of essays on the films as well as the websites, games and The Animatrix video and DVD. Among the topics discussed are the new cyberpunk, Baudrillarian simulacra and simulation, gender, race and costume, cyberculture and the body, virtual realities and special effects.

Stacy Gillis

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