Shifting senses of in/justice: The gothic detective in contemporary Australian film, television and true crime

The detective or private investigator of gothic crime is a complex figure with his origins in nineteenth-century literature. Either bumbling and naïve, or uncannily insightful, these usually single men relentlessly pursue a mystery event or encounter until the crime is solved and narrative resolution is achieved. In doing so, the stolid pursuit of the independent sleuth, who is typically a socially isolated observer, reveals the gothic’s twofold response to the law as both a set of rules to be enforced in the pursuit of justice and as a system to be criticized or mocked. This article explores the representation of the gothic detective in contemporary Australian film, television and true crime, and examines four archetypes of the detective as they appear in contemporary Australian media: the lone detective, the larrikin detective, the apathetic detective and the armchair detective.