1st Edition
Murder in Motion A Sociological Analysis of the City, Transit, and Identity in the Modernist and Postmodernist Thriller
Introduction: The Speed of Suspense 1. Mistaken for No One: Intersubjective Transfers on Trains 2. Suspensions of Identity: Social Acceleration and Character 3. The Child Vanishes: Spatial Enclosure in Aero-Thrillers 4. Remapping Espionage: Don DeLillo’s Narratives of Transnational Intrigue 5. New Frontiers for Suspense: Dispatches from the Multiverse Conclusion: The Suspense of Speed
Biography
Michael Mirabile is an Assistant Professor of English at Lewis & Clark College, where he teaches courses in film and post-World War II fiction. He earned a PhD in Comparative Literature from Yale University. He is the author of Edges of Noir: Extreme Filmmaking in the 1960s (2024).
"Murder in Motion draws upon spatiality studies and mobility theory, as well as urbanism and other areas, to look at the ways that 20th- and 21st-century crime fiction reflects the acceleration and velocity of modern urban life. This is an enriching and interesting approach that opens up both classic cinema and newer cinematic texts, and their interrelationship with modern social life."
Robert T. Tally, Professor of English and International Studies, Texas State University"Most studies of the thriller, whether in fiction, film, or television, approach the subject as a question of genre, which has an acknowledged set of rules that define it. Murder in Motion adopts the methodology of urban sociology as espoused by Paul Virilio, Henri Lefebvre, Walter Benjamin, Marc Augé and others to show how the modern thriller tracks the transformational shifts in society brought on by industrialization and forms of rapid transit. The suspense and the abrupt shift from the ordinary to the extraordinary that are hallmarks of the thriller elucidate the sociological account of modern angst. It’s a thrilling work that will be of social value and importance for some time to come."
Joseph Conte, Professor of English, University of Buffalo
