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, Kogoro Akechi, and Hercule Poirot. Juvenile stories featuring The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and The Boxcar Children have also remained in print for several decades.
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. Most crime drama focuses on criminal investigation and does not feature the courtroom. Suspense and mystery are key elements that are nearly ubiquitous to the genre.
The "locked-room" or "impossible crime" mystery is a type of crime seen in crime and detective fiction. The crime in question, typically murder, is committed in circumstances under which it appeared impossible for the perpetrator to enter the crime scene, commit the crime, and leave undetected. The crime in question typically involves a situation whereby an intruder could not have left; for example the original literal "locked room": a murder victim found in a windowless room locked from the inside at the time of discovery. Following other conventions of classic detective fiction, the reader is normally presented with the puzzle and all of the clues, and is encouraged to solve the mystery before the solution is revealed in a dramatic climax.
S. S. Van Dine is the pseudonym used by American art critic Willard Huntington Wright when he wrote detective novels. Wright was active in avant-garde cultural circles in pre-World War I New York, and under the pseudonym he created the fictional detective Philo Vance, a sleuth and aesthete who first appeared in books in the 1920s, then in films and on the radio.
Willard Mack was a Canadian-American actor, director, and playwright.
Robert William Armstrong was an American film and television actor noted for playing Carl Denham in the 1933 version of King Kong by RKO Pictures. He delivered the film's famous final line: "It wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast."
Russell Wayne Poole was a Los Angeles Police Department detective who investigated the murder of the Notorious B.I.G., a rapper also known as Biggie Smalls. Poole also investigated the killing of LAPD Officer Kevin Gaines by LAPD Officer Frank Lyga on March 18, 1997. After retiring in 1999, he formed a private detective agency.
Delano Ames was an American writer of detective stories. Ames was the author of some 20 books, many of them featuring a husband and wife detective team of amateurs named Dagobert and Jane Brown. A later series of novels involved a character named Juan Lorca, of the Spanish Civil Guard, who solved local mysteries.
One Exciting Night is a 1922 American Gothic silent mystery film directed by D. W. Griffith.
John Miljan was an American actor. He appeared in more than 200 films between 1924 and 1958.
Willard Robertson was an American actor and writer. He appeared in more than 140 films from 1924 to 1948. He was born in Runnels, Texas and died in Hollywood, California.
Robert Downing Ames was an American actor.
The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes is a 1935 British mystery film directed by Leslie S. Hiscott and starring Arthur Wontner. It was based on the 1915 Sherlock Holmes novel The Valley of Fear by Arthur Conan Doyle.
Island in the Sky is a 1938 drama directed by Herbert I. Leeds, starring Gloria Stuart and Michael Whalen.
The American rapper Christopher Wallace, better known as the Notorious B.I.G., was murdered in a drive-by shooting in the early hours of March 9, 1997, in Los Angeles, California. He was 24 years old. Prior to the event, Wallace promoted his second studio album Life After Death, and attended an after-party in Los Angeles instead of traveling to London.
RichardRobert Elliott was an American character actor who appeared in 102 Hollywood films and television shows from 1916 to 1951.
Guilty as Hell is a 1932 American pre-Code mystery film directed by Erle C. Kenton and written by Arthur Kober and Frank Partos. The film stars Edmund Lowe, Victor McLaglen, Richard Arlen, Adrienne Ames, Henry Stephenson, Ralph Ince and Noel Francis. The film was released on August 5, 1932, by Paramount Pictures.
City of Lies is a 2018 crime thriller film about the investigations by the Los Angeles Police Department of the murders of rappers Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. It is directed by Brad Furman, with a screenplay by Christian Contreras based on the non-fiction book LAbyrinth by Randall Sullivan. The film stars Johnny Depp as retired LAPD detective Russell Poole and Forest Whitaker as journalist Jack Jackson, with Rockmond Dunbar and Neil Brown Jr. also starring.
Black Waters is a 1929 British/American horror all-talking sound film produced by Herbert Wilcox and directed by Marshall Neilan. It was the first British-produced talking picture ever shown in England, but it was actually made in Hollywood since that is where the needed sound equipment was at that time. Wilcox sent Neilan to the U.S. to film the picture there, using a mostly American cast and crew.
