Reading Information in Crime Fiction: A Linguistic Analysis of Ruth Rendell’s The Bridesmaid (1989)

Crime fiction is a popular genre which deserves a close analysis of its overall communicative devices. It is the aim of this paper to analyse Ruth Rendell's The Bridesmaid (1989), allegedly considered one of the masterpieces of this well-known genre. Our study endeavours to identify, on the one hand, features which characterize this kind of fiction and, on the other hand, passages where the reader may feel in that state of disappointment due to the author's provision of unrequired information. The latter is undoubtedly one of the basic standpoints typically employed to deny the literary status to this genre.