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Portrait of Thomas Harris Photo: Louis Monier/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images (2000)

Sample of authors

Harris, Thomas

American author who has become known for his thrillers with their atmosphere of horror about the doctor, psychopath and cannibal Hannibal Lector; all of them were bestsellers and have been turned into films. Thomas Harris was born in Jackson, Tennessee, but already when he was a child the family moved to his father’s home district in Rich, Mississippi. His father worked on a farm and the son had m...

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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.

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Literary figures

Jack Reacher

Gender: Male

He is a former officer in the US Army military police, but after being discharged he lives as a vagabond who – usually in a violent manner – solves criminal cases and other problems in books by Lee Child. The well-built Reacher’s parents and only brother are dead, and he steers clear of permanent relationships. He sometimes suffers from claustrophobia and likes to listen to music that he can memor...

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