Crime Writers

Photo: Sean Gallup/Liaison/Getty Images (2001)

Sample of authors

Francis, Dick

The British jockey and author Richard Stanley "Dick" Francis is famous worldwide both as a champion jockey – at one time jockey to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother – and as a bestselling author. From 1962 onwards he dedicated most of his time to writing crime fiction. He was an immensely successful author and is known as one of the most frequently awarded authors of his generation. He received thr...

Further reading

Theme article

History of crime fiction

By: Johan Wopenka

Depending upon how one wishes to define the concept ‘crime fiction’, it is possible to trace its history and roots back in time. When Dorothy L. Sayers compiled her comprehensive three-volume anthology Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror (1928–34) she started with two stories from the Old Testament, and when Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee (alias Ellery Queen) wrote their fundamental The Detective Short Story : A Bibliography (1942), they listed eight Chinese collections of short stories which are believed to have been written down between 600 A.D. and 1800 A.D., some of them containing stories based on an older, oral tradition.

Further reading

Literary figures

Peter Pascoe

Gender: Male

The well-educated, well brought-up, intelligent but somewhat unimaginative detective Peter Pascoe is the permanent companion to his brusque boss Andy Dalziel in the detective stories by Reginald Hill. Pascoe has problems: apart from Dalziel, he also has a father who has never been able to accept that his son become a policeman instead of a farmer, and he has a wife, Ellie – they have a child t...

Further reading