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

Joe Leaphorn

Gender: Male

Joe Leaphorn is a Navajo police officer at a reservation in southeast United States. He is a wise and contemplative individual. Contrary to his colleague Jim Chee, he does not believe in traditional Native American folklore, but in Western rationalism, logic and forensic science. The author, Tony Hillerman, has allowed him to age. Leaphorn eventually retires from his job, but is still...

Further reading