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

Herbie (Eberhardt) Kruger

Gender: Male

Born in Germany, as a teenager he was recruited by the Americans and eventually became a spy for Great Britain. He built up a large spy-ring in East Germany, but, when it was exposed, he had to fight to save his colleagues. Now, the clumsily heavily-built Eberhard ‘Herbie’ Kruger is seen as an old relic, but in John Gardner’s novels he shows that he still has a lot to contribute.

Further reading