Guilty But Insane offers a timely and challenging discussion of the relationship between popular literature, science, and what it means to be human by examining how writers of detective fiction during the 1920s to 1940s understood guilt, responsibility, and the workings of the mind in relation to crime. Walton successfully relates all of these societal and literary developments into a coherent whole, and brings a new perspective to the ongoing reinterpretation and reevaluation of golden age crime fiction.