Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether 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.
Edmund Clerihew Bentley, who generally published under the names E. C. Bentley or E. Clerihew Bentley, was an English novelist and humorist, and inventor of the clerihew, an irregular form of humorous verse on biographical topics.
A whodunit or whodunnit is a complex plot-driven variety of detective fiction in which the puzzle regarding who committed the crime is the main focus. The reader or viewer is provided with the clues to the case, from which the identity of the perpetrator may be deduced before the story provides the revelation itself at its climax. The investigation is usually conducted by an eccentric, amateur, or semi-professional detective.
Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, often a murder. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as historical fiction or science fiction, but the boundaries are indistinct. Crime fiction has several subgenres, including detective fiction, courtroom drama, hard-boiled fiction, and legal thrillers. Most crime drama focuses on crime investigation and does not feature the courtroom. Suspense and mystery are key elements that are nearly ubiquitous to the genre.
Edmund Crispin was the pseudonym of Robert Bruce Montgomery, an English crime writer and composer known for his Gervase Fen novels and for his musical scores for the early films in the Carry On series.
Freeman Wills Crofts FRSA was an Irish engineer and mystery author, remembered best for the character of Inspector Joseph French.
Christopher Robert Fowler was an English thriller writer. While working in the British film industry he became the author of fifty novels and short-story collections, including the Bryant & May mysteries, which record the adventures of two Golden Age detectives in modern-day London. His awards include the 2015 CWA Dagger in the Library, The Last Laugh Award (twice) and the British Fantasy Award, the Edge Hill Prize and the inaugural Green Carnation Award. He was inducted into the prestigious Detection Club in 2021. His other works include screenplays, video games, graphic novels, audio and stage plays.
Henry Reymond Fitzwalter Keating was an English crime fiction writer most notable for his series of novels featuring Inspector Ghote of the Bombay CID.
The Golden Age of Detective Fiction was an era of classic murder mystery novels of similar patterns and styles, predominantly in the 1920s and 1930s.
Love Lies Bleeding may refer to:
The Moving Toyshop (1946) is a work of detective fiction by Edmund Crispin, featuring his recurrent sleuth, Gervase Fen, an Oxford professor of English Language and Literature.
Murder at School is a detective novel by James Hilton first published in 1931 under the pen-name Glen Trevor. It was released in the United States the following year under the title Was It Murder?
The gentleman detective, less commonly lady detective, is a type of fictional character. He has long been a staple of crime fiction, particularly in detective novels and short stories set in the United Kingdom in the Golden Age. The heroes of these adventures are typically both gentlemen by conduct and often also members of the British gentry. The literary heroes being in opposition to professional police force detectives from the working classes.
Overture to Death is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the eighth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1939. The plot concerns a murder during an amateur theatrical performance in a Dorset village, which Alleyn and his colleague Fox are dispatched from Scotland Yard to investigate and duly solve.
Gervase Fen is a fictional amateur detective and Oxford Professor of English Language and Literature created by Edmund Crispin. Fen appears in nine novels and two books of short stories published between 1944 and 1979. Fen is an unconventional detective who is often faced with a locked room mystery to solve.
Holy Disorders is a 1945 detective novel by the British writer Edmund Crispin. It the second in his series featuring the Oxford professor and amateur detective Gervase Fen. The novel is set in 1940 during the early stages of the Second World War. The title is a reference to Chaucer.
Swan Song is a 1947 detective novel by the British writer Edmund Crispin, the fourth in his series featuring the Oxford Don and amateur detective Gervase Fen. It was the first in a new three-book contract the author has signed with his publishers. It received a mixed review from critics.
Buried for Pleasure is a 1948 detective novel by the British writer Edmund Crispin, the sixth in his series featuring the Oxford professor and amateur detective Gervase Fen. As with the rest of the Fen novels, a complex Golden Age-style mystery is combined with elements of farce. Fen contests a by-election in rural constituency, but events are rapidly overtaken by a murder case. It features Detective Inspector Humbleby who also appeared in the next novel Frequent Hearses as well as most of the short stories in the series.
Beware of the Trains is a collection of detective short stories by the British writer Edmund Crispin published in 1953. It contains sixteen stories including Beware of the Trains which gave its title to the collection. They all feature Crispin's amateur detective and Oxford professor Gervase Fen, an eccentric with a genius for solving complex cases. A number also featured Detective Inspector Humbleby of Scotland Yard who also appears in two of the novels in the Fen series. Apart from one they had all previously appeared in the Evening Standard newspaper. It was the last work featuring Fen for many years, until Crispin returned to the character for the 1977 novel The Glimpses of the Moon.
The Long Divorce is a 1951 detective novel by the British writer Edmund Crispin, the eighth in his series featuring the Oxford professor and amateur detective Gervase Fen. It was the penultimate novel in the series, with a gap or more than twenty five years before the next entry The Glimpses of the Moon, although a collection of short stories Beware of the Trains was published in 1953. The novel features many traits of a Golden Age mystery, set in a small, wealthy English village. The title doesn't refer to a marriage but is a quote from Shakespeare's Henry VIII "the long divorce of steel". It was published in the United States by Dodd, Mead in 1951 under the same title, and a year later as A Noose for Her.
