Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, was a British author known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, the murder mystery The Mousetrap, which has been performed in the West End of London since 1952. A writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Christie has been called the "Queen of Crime"—a moniker which is now trademarked by her estate—or the "Queen of Mystery". She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to literature. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.
Max Allan Collins is an American mystery writer, noted for his graphic novels. His work has been published in several formats and his Road to Perdition series was the basis for a film of the same name. He wrote the Dick Tracy newspaper strip for many years and has produced numerous novels featuring the character as well.
Michael Hammer is a fictional character created by the American author Mickey Spillane. Hammer debuted in the 1947 book I, the Jury. Hammer is a no-holds-barred private investigator whose love for his secretary Velda is outweighed only by his willingness to kill a killer. Hammer's best friend is Pat Chambers, Captain of NYPD Homicide. Hammer was a World War II army veteran who spent two years fighting jungle warfare in the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II against Japan.
Simon Anthony Lee Brett OBE FRSL is a British author of detective fiction, a playwright, and a producer-writer for television and radio. As an author, he is best known for his mystery series featuring Charles Paris, Mrs Pargeter, Fethering, and Blotto & Twinks. His radio credits have included The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue and Just a Minute.
Michael Terence Aspel is a retired English television presenter and newsreader. He hosted programmes such as Crackerjack, Ask Aspel, Aspel & Company, Give Us a Clue, This Is Your Life, Strange but True? and Antiques Roadshow.
Harlan Coben is an American writer of mystery novels and thrillers. The plots of his novels often involve the resurfacing of unresolved or misinterpreted events in the past, murders, or fatal accidents and have multiple twists. Twelve of his novels have been adapted for film and television.
An inverted detective story, also known as a "howcatchem", is a murder mystery fiction structure in which the commission of the crime is shown or described at the beginning, usually including the identity of the perpetrator. The story then describes the detective's attempt to solve the mystery. There may also be subsidiary puzzles, such as why the crime was committed, and they are explained or resolved during the story.
John Maddox Roberts was an American author of science fiction, fantasy, and historical fiction including the SPQR series and Hannibal's Children.
An anthology series is a written series, radio, television, film, or video game series that presents a different story and a different set of characters in each different episode, season, segment, or short. These usually have a different cast in each episode, but several series in the past, such as Four Star Playhouse, employed a permanent troupe of character actors who would appear in a different drama each week. Some anthology series, such as Studio One, began on radio and then expanded to television.
Parsley Sidings is a BBC Radio sitcom of the early 1970s created by Jim Eldridge. It stars Arthur Lowe and Ian Lavender and Kenneth Connor from the Carry On films.
Philip Jackson is an English actor. He appeared as Chief Inspector Japp in both the television series Agatha Christie's Poirot and in BBC Radio dramatisations of Poirot stories; as Melvin "Dylan" Bottomley in Porridge; and as Abbot Hugo, one of the recurring adversaries in the 1980s series Robin of Sherwood.
William Theodore Link was an American film and television screenwriter and producer who often worked in collaboration with Richard Levinson.
Jørn Lier Horst is a Norwegian author of crime fiction and a former Senior Investigating Officer at Vestfold police district. His books have been published in over 40 countries and have sold more than ten million copies. Horst made his writing debut in 2004 with Key Witness, based on a true murder story. The detective character in his crime novels is William Wisting, and a television series based on the series premiered in 2019.
Kenneth Martin Edwards is a British crime novelist, whose work has won multiple awards including lifetime achievement awards for his fiction, non-fiction, short fiction, and scholarship in the UK and the United States. In addition to translations into various European languages, his books have been translated into Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese. As a crime fiction critic and historian, and also in his career as a solicitor, he has written non-fiction books and many articles. He is the current President of the Detection Club and in 2020 was awarded the Crime Writers' Association's Diamond Dagger, the highest honour in British crime writing, in recognition of the "sustained excellence" of his work in the genre.
Michael Raymond Donald Ashley is a British bibliographer, author and editor of science fiction, mystery, and fantasy.
Kerry Isabelle Greenwood is an Australian author and lawyer. She has written many plays and books, most notably a string of historical detective novels centred on the character of Phryne Fisher, which was adapted as the popular television series Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. She writes mysteries, science-fiction, historical fiction, children's stories, and plays. Greenwood earned the Australian women's crime fiction Davitt Award in 2002 for her young adult novel The Three-Pronged Dagger.
My Story is a series of historical novels for children published by Scholastic UK. They are similar to the Dear America series, each book is written in the form of the diary of a fictional young woman or man living during an important event in history. Most of the books feature British characters and history, but some are about non-British characters during important events and times in world history.
Shawn Williamson is a Canadian film and television producer based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
John George Haslette Vahey was a versatile and prolific Northern Irish author of detective fiction in the genre's Golden Age in the 1920s and 1930s. Although his work has remained largely out of print since the end of the golden age, he is now enjoying a resurgence of popularity, and some of his work is again in print, or available as e-books.
Magpie Murders is a 2016 mystery novel by British author Anthony Horowitz and the first novel in the Susan Ryeland series. The story focuses on the murder of a mystery author and uses a story within a story format.
