ABSTRACT
As the fourth installment in the Petra Delicado series, Muertos de papel (2000) turns significantly on and toward the criminalization of images and image-makers, but it is a novel about image in more than one sense. In addition to exploring the image as a visual event or object, Muertos de papel foregrounds the dangerous nexus between images and reputations. All of Alicia Giménez Bartlett’s crime fiction novels are paeans to the disciplinary agency of the police, and the articulation and enforcement of images of gender are fundamental to the success of the series. As the foremost interpreters of images, the police observe, uphold, and disseminate essential “truths” about gender in the face of falsehood, misdirection, and deviance. And across the installments, the criminals are systematically linked to images and to the circulation, reflection, and curtailment of images in ways that both implicate and reflect Muertos de papel.2
