Who Dun It to the Country? Crime, Investigation, and 9/11 in No Country for Old Men

This article examines McCarthy's use of the genre of crime novel, especially its element of crime investigation process, in No Country for Old Men in the context of the aftermath of the 9/11 attack. Despite the facts that No Country for Old Men is marketed and commonly perceived as a crime fiction and that the plot and the style of the novel are indicative of the genre, literary critics have been reluctant to read this novel as a crime fiction. However, the elements of crime and investigation are central to the novel's debunking of the mythologized images of the past and revelation of the history that has culminated to the present state of the United States. Through the plot of an expanding spiral of violent crimes and the process of investigation, McCarthy reveals the violent history of the U.S. and dismantles the idealized myth of Old West that covers it.