Mean Streets is the first scholarly journal to specialize in a significant and expanding category of American literature: mystery and detective fiction. Volume 1 provides an appropriate venue for scholars who are interested primarily in the American practitioners of the genre such as Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Rex Stout, Sue Grafton, Ross Macdonald, and many others.

Mean Streets is the first scholarly journal to specialize in a significant and expanding category of American literature: mystery and detective fiction. The "Golden Age" of mystery and detective fiction is generally agreed upon as bounded by World War I and World War II. While the designation has been applied to both British and American fiction, it is most often attributed to British fiction alone. Mean Streets Volume 3 seeks to analyze this "Golden Age" and its Implications in American mystery and detective fiction.