Crime Writers

Photo: Ola Erikson / Forflex

Sample of authors

Ford, Richard

American author born in Jackson, Mississippi. His father, Parker Carrol, was a travelling salesman, which meant that the family often moved homes when Richard was young. His mother, Edna Ford, came from Little Rock, Arkansas. Richard was educated at Davis Elementary School that had also been attended by his idol Eudora Welty. As a child he spent his summer holidays at his grandfather's hotel,...

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

Bertie

Gender: Male

Bertie was the popular name for Albert Edward who was the son of Queen Victoria and between 1901 and 1910 King Edward VII. As a young Prince of Wales he was a notorious playboy who caused many scandals to the despair of his mother. He solves crime in a handful historical whodunits by Peter Lovesey.

Further reading