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

Stephen Ramsey

Gender: Male

Detective Chief Inspector Ramsey is a bitter, middle-aged lone wolf, abandoned by his wife and not appreciated by his colleagues in the police force in Northumberland. In Ann Cleeves’ first books about him, he seems unacceptably glum and boring, but his personality develops and he turns out to be a good and empathetic listener – which also makes him a good murder investigator.

Further reading