Mord og metafysik: Det absolutte, det guddommelige og det overnaturlige i krimien

Traditionally, crime fiction is set in a modern society framework where detection takes place by means of rational empirical tools. This is the reason why, for a number of years, crime fiction has been critical towards metaphysics, religion and the supernatural. Murder and Metaphysics demonstrates that the boundary between crime fiction and metaphysics is not so clear-cut as was previously assumed. A large number of Scandinavian crime novels are now adapting modern society’s renewed relationship to metaphysics in a serious way. Crime fiction is no longer dismissive of faith and transgressions of reason. Religious and supernatural ideas are included along with the detections of the investigator. Metaphysics and religiosity have just changed in character and contents. The overall argument of Murder and Metaphysics is that if crime fiction is tied to modern values, and if these values have been exposed to reduction, then crime fiction must be open to the absolute, the divine and the supernatural.

Murder and Metaphysics includes titles from authors such as Arne Dahl, Elsebeth Egholm, Stieg Larsson, Håkan Nesser, Sara Blædel, Gunnar Staalesen, Tom Egeland, Camilla Läckberg, Anne Holt, Peter Høeg, Johan Theorin and many more. TV series such as Unit One, The Protectors and The X-files are also included. All of these exemplify crime fiction which in one way or another includes metaphysics, religion or the supernatural..

The academic peer reviewer wrote about Murder and Metaphysics: "The issue is original and most interesting, even from an international research perspective. In short, the author clarifies a central trend in contemporary crime fiction which I wish I had discovered. This is a book worth reading, and it will also be interesting for a wider audience outside the academic sphere".