"As many street cops as corners": displacing 1905 in the Pinkertons -- A terrible vengeance: the "avenger detective" in Russia -- Slumming litterateurs and starving students: the Pinkertons' purported authors -- The persistence of Pinkertons: reception before and after the revolution -- The red Pinkerton's rise: Bukharin and the Komsomol -- How the mess was mended: Marietta Shaginian and red pinkertonism -- The novel, the film, and the kinoroman: parody and the decline of the red Pinkerton -- The question of genre and the Pinkertons' legacy
Summary
This book examines the staggering popularity of early-twentieth-century Russian detective serials, traditionally maligned as "Pinkertonovshchina," and posits the "red Pinkerton" as a vital "missing link" between pre- and post-Revolutionary popular literature