Drawing on complex narratives across film, TV, novels and graphic novels, this authoritative critical analysis demonstrates the value of fictional narratives as a tool for understanding, explaining and reducing crime and social harm. McGregor establishes an original theory of the criminological value of fiction.
In The Value of Literature, Rafe McGregor employs a unique approach - the combination of philosophical work on value theory and critical work on the relationship between form and content - to present a new argument for, and defence of, literary humanism. He argues that literature has value for art, for culture, and for humanity - in short, that it matters. Unlike most contemporary defenders of literary value, the author's strategy does not involve arguing that literature is good as a means to one of the various ends that matter to human beings. It is not that literature necessarily makes us cleverer, more sensitive, more virtuous, more creative, or just generally better people. Nor is it true that there is a necessary relation between literature and edification, clarification, cultural critique, catharsis, or therapy. Rather than offer an argument that forges a tenuous link between literature and truth, or literature and virtue, or literature and the sacred, this book analyses the non-derivative, sui generic value characteristic of literature and demonstrates why that matters as an end in itself.
Roderick Langham is a retired soldier, disgraced police inspector, and reluctant occult detective. He inhabits the world of Sherlock Holmes, investigates cases with John Watson and Sebastian Moran, and is able to perceive the reality concealed by the illusion of everyday appearances. These nine stories follow Langham from his first encounter with the inexplicable in the Himalayan hills to his investigation of the wreck of the Demeter and his growing realisation that the dales, moors, and wolds which surround his Yorkshire refuge are home to an evil far older than the honeycomb of medieval monasteries and Roman ruins suggests. Praise for Rafe McGregor's The Architect of Murder: "Arthur Conan Doyle is alive and well, and writing under the name Rafe McGregor." - Tess Gerritsen "Rafe McGregor is the architect of murderously good historical fiction." - Gyles Brandreth ..".a fascinating marriage of investigative mayhem with keen attention to historical detail..." - Graham Hurley "There's some dandy police procedure...and plenty of interesting characters to carry the story along." - Bill Crider ..".an exciting read, giving a very authentic flavour of the period..." - Bernard Knight