Meny

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 figure

Doug Selby

Gender: Male

Although a capable lawyer, Lam is unpopular with both the police and his colleagues. There is no evidence or witness statements that he cannot distort in one way or another. He is employed by the tough private detective Bertha Cool. They make up a formidable pair in a series of light-hearted mystery novels by A. A. Fair (pen name for Erle Stanley Gardner).

Further reading