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

Suzie (Susannah) Mountford

Gender: Female

Shortly after becoming a police officer, Susannah ‘Suzie’ Mountford – because of a shortage of staff during the war – had to investigate a murder case. She managed it well, and also became the secret lover of her boss, Chief Inspector Tommy Livermore. She is described by her creator, John Gardner, as tall and slim, with brown hair and green eyes. Her father died in an accident when she was a teena...

Further reading