Amateur City
| Author | Katherine V. Forrest |
|---|---|
| Genre | Lesbian crime novel |
| Publisher | Naiad Press |
| Publication date | 1984 |
Amateur City is a 1984 lesbian crime novel by Katherine V. Forrest, published by Naiad Press. It was the first entry in a series of novels about fictional detective Kate Delafield.[1]
Plot
Kate Delafield, a closeted lesbian detective, investigates the murder of an executive whose abusive tendences earned him many enemies.
Writing
Forrest originally planned to write a mystery about an amateur detective named Ellen O'Neill. She replaced this character with LAPD homicide detective Kate Delafield after considering the need to include police within the narrative and "the fact that women had finally won the court cases that allowed us to move from restricted work in jails and with juveniles into the higher echelons of police work."[2] Delafield is considered to be the first lesbian police detective in fiction.[3] Forrest gave Delafield a backstory of serving in the Marines in the Vietnam War, and made the character conscious of external pressures that caused changes within LAPD that allowed women to advance as detectives.[4]
Like in many of Forrest's novels, the victim of the inciting crime is an unsympathetic and abusive figure.[5]
Reception
Maria Cipriani described the novel as "an entertaining and realistic portrayal of lesbian life".[1] The novel had a large impact on lesbian fiction published afterwards.[6]
References
- 1 2 Hawley, John Charles (2008-11-30). LGBTQ America Today: An Encyclopedia [3 volumes]. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. pp. 412–413. ISBN 978-0-313-08730-1.
- ↑ "History, the Closet, and the LAPD". Los Angeles Review of Books. 2015-06-16. Retrieved 2026-03-28.
- ↑ Markowitz, Judith A. (2015-02-16). The Gay Detective Novel: Lesbian and Gay Main Characters and Themes in Mystery Fiction. McFarland. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-7864-8277-1.
- ↑ Panek, Leroy Lad (2015-09-17). The American Police Novel: A History. McFarland. p. 225. ISBN 978-0-7864-8137-8.
- ↑ Klein, Kathleen Gregory (1995). Women Times Three: Writers, Detectives, Readers. Popular Press. p. 68. ISBN 978-0-87972-682-9.
- ↑ Wilson, Anna (1996). "Death and the Mainstream: Lesbian Detective Fiction and the Killing of the Coming-Out Story". Feminist Studies. 22 (2): 251–278. doi:10.2307/3178413. ISSN 0046-3663.