Postfeminism in British crime fiction: women, murder and the image of success

Crime fiction, as a genre, engages with the points of ideological tension and anxiety occupying the society in which the novels are written. Modern British crime novels illustrate this engagement, with books by Val McDermid, Ann Cleeves and Hania Allen all interacting with societal concerns about postfeminism and the changing nature of gender. The engagement of McDermid, Cleeves and Allen with postfeminism sits along a spectrum of critique, further illustrating the varied levels of concern raised by postfeminism and its reshaping of gender in British society. All three authors, however, focus their critique on the ways in which postfeminism associates female success with individual effort, demonstrating that this association remains a point of tension and concern within wider British society. This thesis will, then, examine the ways in which modern British crime fiction, as seen through the lens of Val McDermid, Ann Cleeves and Hania Allen, engages with postfeminism and consider how their depictions of women struggling to achieve postfeminist success raises questions about the neoliberal assumption that women can achieve this success through individual effort.