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

Earl Jazine

Gender: Male

He is young, enthusiastic, self-assured – and a computer genius. Earl Jazine works for the CIB (the police Computer Investigation Bureau) in New York, the members of which are usually called ‘computer cops’. He spends most of his time at work, often together with his boss Carl Crader. His private life is rarely mentioned, but his creator Edward D. Hoch reveals that Earl has a weakness for beaut...

Further reading