1&Introduction 1
Reuenge， retribution， payback 2
Special crimes and wild justice 4
Special crimes： locked rooms and magic bullets 5
Special crimes： crimes against kin 5
Special crimes： crimes against symbolic places and persons 6
Special crimes： the police as criminals 7
Legality and carniual 8
Legality and carnival： their antecedents 9
Legality and carnival： order and disorder 11
Legality and carnival fusions： three cases—Sean Devine vs.Jimmy Marcus； Bob Ewell vs.Atticus Finch； The King of Spain vs&Augusto Pinochet Ugarte 15
History， reuenge， and national security 21
2. Revenge and the detective tradition： when dogs don’t bark and detectives don’t tell 28
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Charles Augustus Miluerton” 30
Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express 33
Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” 38
3. Some like it wild： supernatural revenge in Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Mr&Justice Harbottle” 47
4. Law and the romantic ego： conspiracy and justice in Honore de Balzac’s Le Pere Goriot 61
5. Justice， race， and revenge in Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson 81
6. The empire strikes back： imperialism and justice in E.M&Forster’s A Passage to India 98
7. Race， sex， fear， revenge in Richard Wright’s Native Son 117
8. State terrorism and revenge in Andre Brink’s A Dry White Season 133
9. Rogue cops and beltway vigilantes 154
Torture， redemptiue uiolence， and “American ideals” 154
Justice goes to the mouies 162
Dirty Harry， Death Wish， and the politics of torture 174
Notes 193
Bibliography 200
Index 209