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.
Ellery Queen is a pseudonym created in 1929 by American crime fiction writers Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee and the name of their main fictional character, a mystery writer in New York City who helps his police inspector father solve baffling murders. Dannay and Lee wrote most of the more than thirty novels and several short story collections in which Ellery Queen appeared as a character, and their books were among the most popular of American mysteries published between 1929 and 1971. In addition to the fiction featuring their eponymous brilliant amateur detective, the two men acted as editors: as Ellery Queen they edited more than thirty anthologies of crime fiction and true crime, and Dannay founded and for many decades edited Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, which has been published continuously from 1941 to the present. From 1961, Dannay and Lee also commissioned other authors to write crime thrillers using the Ellery Queen nom de plume, but not featuring Ellery Queen as a character; several juvenile novels were credited to Ellery Queen, Jr. Finally, the prolific duo wrote four mysteries under the pseudonym Barnaby Ross.
John Innes Mackintosh Stewart was a Scottish novelist and academic. He is equally well known for the works of literary criticism and contemporary novels published under his real name and for the crime fiction published under the pseudonym of Michael Innes.
Michael Francis Gilbert was an English solicitor and author of crime fiction.
Freeman Wills Crofts FRSA was an Irish mystery author, best remembered for the character of Inspector Joseph French.
Ruthven Campbell Todd was a Scottish poet, artist and novelist, best known as an editor of the works of William Blake, and expert on his printing techniques. During the 1940s he also wrote detective fiction under the pseudonym R. T. Campbell and children's fiction during the 1950s.
Edith Caroline Rivett was a British crime writer, who wrote under the pseudonyms E. C. R. Lorac, Carol Carnac and Mary Le Bourne during the golden age of detective fiction.
Julian Gustave Symons was a British crime writer and poet. He also wrote social and military history, biography and studies of literature. He was born in Clapham, London, and died in Walmer, Kent.
The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor is a 1937 crime novel by Ernest Borneman writing as Cameron McCabe. It was first published in London. The book makes use of the false document technique: It pretends to be the true story of a 38-year-old Scotsman called Cameron McCabe who writes about a crucial period of his own life, during which several people close to him are murdered.
Cecil John Charles Street, who was known to his colleagues, family and friends as John Street, began his military career as an artillery officer in the British Army. During the course of World War I, he became a propagandist for MI7, in which role he held the rank of Major. After the armistice, he alternated between Dublin and London during the Irish War of Independence as Information Officer for Dublin Castle, working closely with Lionel Curtis. He later earned his living as a prolific writer of detective novels.
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.
In the Best Families is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, first published by the Viking Press in 1950. The story was collected in the omnibus volumes Five of a Kind and Triple Zeck.
The Belting Inheritance is a 1965 mystery detective novel by the British writer Julian Symons. It is a traditional country house mystery harking back towards the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. It was republished by British Library Publishing in 2018 along with another Symons novel The Colour of Murder.
A Man Called Jones is a 1947 mystery detective novel by British writer Julian Symons. It is the second novel in his trilogy featuring the Scotland Yard detective Chief Inspector Bland. Symons was critical of the "Great Detective" that features in so many novels during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction and demonstrates this in the climatic scene where Bland assembles all the suspects to explain his theory, only to first send them to sleep and then be confronted by the late arrival of a previously unknown character on which the whole puzzle hinges.
Bland Beginning is a 1949 mystery detective novel by British writer Julian Symons. It is the third and final novel in his trilogy featuring the Scotland Yard detective Chief Inspector Bland. It features Bland before he became a policeman, becoming involved in his first ever case.
The 31st of February is a 1950 mystery crime novel by British writer Julian Symons. It was his fourth published novel following a trilogy featuring Chief Inspector Bland. It further continued the author's toying with the Great Detective type of the classic model during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. The investigating officer in a potential murder case, Inspector Cresse, is far from flattering portrayed.
Death Before Dinner is a 1948 detective novel by E.C.R. Lorac, the pen name of the British writer Edith Caroline Rivett. It is the thirtieth in her long-running series featuring Chief Inspector MacDonald of Scotland Yard, one of the detectives of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction who relies on standard police procedure to solve his cases. It was published in the United States by Doubleday under the alternative title of A Screen for Murder.
Crossed Skis is a 1952 detective novel by Carol Carnac, the pen name of the British writer Edith Caroline Rivett. It features the character of Inspector Julian Rivers of Scotland Yard, who appeared in fourteen novels by Carnac who under the name E.C.R. Lorac also wrote the better-known series featuring Chief Inspector MacDonald. Originally published by Collins Crime Club, it was reissued in 2020 by the British Library Publishing as part of a group of crime novels from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.
Murder in St. John's Wood is a 1934 detective novel by E.C.R. Lorac, the pen name of the British writer Edith Caroline Rivett. It is the sixth book featuring Chief Inspector MacDonald of Scotland Yard who appeared in a lengthy series of novels during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.
