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

Lew Fonesca

Gender: Male

Middle-aged, thin and bald gentleman who worked in a lawyer’s office in Chicago until his wife was killed by a motorist who absconded from the scene. Lew Fonesca took his car and drove until it gave up. Now he works as a freelance legal assistant and process server in Sarasota, Florida. He also a sad and unwilling detective when somebody asks for help, says author Stuart M. Kaminsky.

Further reading