Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—either professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as speculative fiction and other genre fiction in the mid-nineteenth century and has remained extremely popular, particularly in novels. Some of the most famous heroes of detective fiction include C. Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, and Hercule Poirot. Juvenile stories featuring The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and The Boxcar Children have also remained in print for several decades.
Anna Katharine Green was an American poet and novelist. She was one of the first writers of detective fiction in America and distinguished herself by writing well plotted, legally accurate stories. Green has been called "the mother of the detective novel".
Margery Louise Allingham was an English novelist from the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", best remembered for her hero, the gentleman sleuth Albert Campion.
Dorothy, Lady Dunnett was a Scottish novelist best known for her historical fiction. Dunnett is most famous for her six novel series set during the 16th century, which concern the fictitious adventurer Francis Crawford of Lymond. This was followed by the eight novel prequel series The House of Niccolò. Her other work include a novel concerning the historical Macbeth called King Hereafter (1982), and a series of mystery novels centered upon Johnson Johnson, a portrait painter and spy.
Kate Wilhelm was an American author. She wrote novels and stories in the science fiction, mystery, and suspense genres, including the Hugo Award–winning Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, and she established the Clarion Workshop with her husband Damon Knight and writer Robin Scott Wilson.
A mystery film is a genre of film that revolves around the solution of a problem or a crime. It focuses on the efforts of the detective, private investigator or amateur sleuth to solve the mysterious circumstances of an issue by means of clues, investigation, and clever deduction.
Janet Evanovich is an American writer. She began her career writing short contemporary romance novels under the pen name Steffie Hall, but gained fame authoring a series of contemporary mysteries featuring Stephanie Plum, a former lingerie buyer from Trenton, New Jersey, who becomes a bounty hunter to make ends meet after losing her job. The novels in this series have been on The New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal and Amazon bestseller lists. Evanovich has had her last seventeen Plums debut at #1 on the NY Times Best Sellers list and eleven of them have hit #1 on USA Today Best-Selling Books list. She has over two hundred million books in print worldwide and is translated into over 40 languages.
Lynda Suzanne Robinson is an American writer, author of romance and mystery novels. She is best known for her series of historical whodunnits set in Ancient Egypt during the reign of Tutankhamun and featuring Lord Meren, "the Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh". She lives in Texas with her husband and has a doctorate in anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin.
Michael Malone is an American author and television writer, born in Durham, North Carolina. He is best known for his work on the ABC Daytime drama One Life to Live, as well as for his novels Handling Sin (1983), Foolscap (1991), and murder mystery First Lady (2001).
Loren D. Estleman is an American writer of detective and Western fiction. He is known for a series of crime novels featuring the investigator Amos Walker.
The Agatha Awards, named for Agatha Christie, are literary awards for mystery and crime writers who write in the cozy mystery subgenre. At an annual convention in Washington, D.C., the Agatha Awards are handed out by Malice Domestic Ltd, in six categories: Best Novel; Best First Mystery; Best Historical Novel; Best Short Story; Best Non-Fiction; Best Children's/Young Adult Mystery. Additionally, in some years the Poirot Award is presented to honor individuals other than writers who have made outstanding contributions to the mystery genre, but it is not an annual award.
Sandra Lynn Brown, née Cox is an American bestselling author of romantic novels and thriller suspense novels. Brown has also published works under the pen names of Rachel Ryan, Laura Jordan, and Erin St. Claire.
Jennifer Crusie is a pseudonym for Jennifer Smith, a bestselling and award-winning author of contemporary romance novels. She has written more than twenty novels, which have been published in 20 countries.
Dana Cameron is an American archaeologist, and author of award-winning crime fiction and urban fantasy.
Mary I of England has been depicted in popular culture a number of times.
The Lodger is a novel by English author Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes. The short story was first published in the last edition of McClure's Magazine, in 1911. Belloc Lowndes wrote a longer version of the story, which was published as a series in the Daily Telegraph in 1913 with the same name. Later that year, the novel was published in its entirety by Methuen Publishing.
Beverle Graves Myers is an American author of mystery novels and short stories. Her major work is the Tito Amato mystery series set in 18th-century Venice, published by Poisoned Pen Press. She is also the co-author, with Joanne Dobson, of a stand-alone crime novel set in New York City on the eve of World War II. Myers' novels are traditional mysteries which feature a large cast of characters, a deep sense of time and place, and meticulously researched period details. Myers' short stories are set in a variety of times and places; several stories feature her series characters.
Jeri Westerson is an American novelist of medieval mysteries, historical novels, and paranormal novels, along with LGBT mysteries under the pen name Haley Walsh.
The Lord John series is a sequence of historical mystery novels and shorter works written by Diana Gabaldon that center on Lord John Grey, a recurring secondary character in the author's Outlander series. Secretly homosexual "in a time when that particular predilection could get one hanged," the character has been called "one of the most complex and interesting" of the hundreds of characters in Gabaldon's Outlander novels. Starting with the 1998 novella Lord John and the Hellfire Club, the Lord John spin-off series currently consists of six novellas and three novels.
