Nice to know this is coming down the pike: Columbia University Press is about to publish Leonard Cassuto‘s Hard-Boiled Sentimentality: The Secret History of American Crime Stories. Cassuto, an American lit prof at Fordham University, has spent a few years drawing connections between the crime novels and the nineteenth-century sentimental novel. As he explains to a Fordham in-house publication, a lot of crime fiction deals in family values:
“Fictional serial killers are always going after members of the middle class. They pick off people who are members of families and people who, when they die, will be missed, or when they’re kidnapped, are going to be chased after,” Cassuto said. “In real life, serial killers don’t work that way. Made-up serial killers are engaged with ideas of family in ways that real serial killers are not.”
markathitakis.com 
I saw an announcement about this through my Amazon account somewhere — just the title — so it’s nice to hear a little more about it. Crime fiction is my first love, and always interested to see it treated in a scholarly way. Thanks for giving it a plug — and me a reminder — to look this title up.