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.
Literary figure
Luther Trant
Gender: Male
Shortly after finishing his university studies, the young psychologist Luther Trant opens his own practice, not just as a psychologist but also as a private detective. He becomes very successful and is also respected by the police. He is of average height, athletically built and has thick, red hair and blue-green eyes. Unfortunately, the authors William MacHarg and Edwin Balmer only wrote one...