The "I" of the detective: Dolores Redondo and Carolina Solé

Abstract

The overwhelming presence and the paramount role of women detectives’ subjectivity in murder investigations characterizes contemporary Spanish crime narratives written by women, such as Dolores Redondo’s El guardián invisible (2013) and Carolina Solé’s Ojos de hielo (2013). This article posits that in these narratives the subjectivity of the woman detective becomes configured in opposition to the highly scientific nature of modern police activity —based on the matching of DNA samples and dominated by the character of the profiler—. This radical contradiction between personality and science produces an “other” crime narrative that departs from the conventions of the genre by privileging life over death.