The corpus delicti

the long version

"The Corpus Delicti is a manual of crime, a compendium of crime tales, and an extended meditation on the central role of crime in literature, in life, and in the life of the nation. Beginning with an excerpt from Karl Marx, and characterizing "crime" as a critical instrument that both defines and constructs culture, Ludmer goes far beyond understanding crime and detective fiction as a genre and exposes how literature - both high art and mass culture - function as a hypertext of social reality. She elucidates the relationship of crime and punishment to the formation of law, the body, and the modern state."--BOOK JACKET.