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

Asey Mayo

Gender: Male

Asa ‘Asey’ Mayo is a former seaman and racing driver who has settled in Cape Cod in Massachusetts, where he occupies himself with a bit of everything while he solves crimes in a couple of dozen books by Phoebe Atwood Taylor. He is tall and thin, weather-beaten, humorous and always walks leaning forward. He is single, but spends a lot of time with his gossiping cousin, Jennie, and her husband.

Further reading