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.
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a "consulting detective" in his stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, deduction, forensic science and logical reasoning that borders on the fantastic, which he employs when investigating cases for a wide variety of clients, including Scotland Yard.
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.
The Baker Street Irregulars is an organization of Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts founded in 1934 by Christopher Morley. As of 2015, the nonprofit organization had about 300 members worldwide.
John Edgar Wideman is an American novelist, short story writer, memoirist, and essayist. He was the first person to win the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction twice. His writing is known for experimental techniques and a focus on the African-American experience.
Dan Chaon is an American writer. Formerly a creative writing professor, he is the author of three short story collections and four novels.
Michael Dirda is an American book critic, working for the Washington Post. He has been a Fulbright Fellow and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1993.
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for A Study in Scarlet, the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Holmes and Dr. Watson. The Sherlock Holmes stories are milestones in the field of crime fiction.
"Lot No. 249" is a Gothic horror short story by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle, first published in Harper's Magazine in 1892. The story tells of a University of Oxford athlete named Abercrombie Smith who notices a strange series of events surrounding Edward Bellingham, an Egyptology student who owns many ancient Egyptian artefacts, including a mummy. After seeing his mummy disappear and reappear, and two instances of Bellingham's enemies being attacked, Smith concludes that Bellingham is re-animating his mummy.
Leslie S. Klinger is an American attorney and writer. He is a noted literary editor and annotator of classic genre fiction, including the Sherlock Holmes stories and the novels Dracula, Frankenstein, and Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as well as Neil Gaiman's The Sandman comics, Alan Moore's and Dave Gibbons's graphic novel Watchmen, the stories of H.P. Lovecraft, and Neil Gaiman's American Gods.
Alexandr Nikolayevich Aksakov was a Russian writer, translator, journalist, editor, state official and psychic researcher, who is credited with having coined the term "telekinesis". While living in Germany with his wife and publishing his writings there, he began to spell his name as Alexander Aksakof to accommodate the German spelling style, and this is the name by which he is most known outside of Russia.
Margalit Fox is an American writer. After earning a master's degree in linguistics, she began her career in publishing in the 1980s. In 1994, she joined The New York Times as a copy editor for its Book Review and later wrote widely on language, culture and ideas for The New York Times, New York Newsday, Variety and other publications. She joined the obituary department of The New York Times in 2004 and authored over 1,400 obituaries before her retirement from the staff of the paper in 2018. Fox has written several nonfiction books.
Bouchercon is an annual convention of creators and devotees of mystery and detective fiction. It is named in honour of writer, reviewer, and editor Anthony Boucher; also the inspiration for the Anthony Awards, which have been issued at the convention since 1986. This page details Bouchercon XLIII and the 27th Anthony Awards ceremony.
Daniel Stashower is an American author and editor of mystery fiction and historical nonfiction. He lives in Maryland.
Lyndsay Faye is an American author. Her first novel was the Sherlockian pastiche Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson and she has been nominated for the Edgar Award for The Gods of Gotham and Jane Steele. The Gods of Gotham was named "the year’s best mystery novel" by the American Library Association.
From Holmes to Sherlock: The Story of the Men and Women Who Created an Icon is a non-fiction book by Mattias Boström which explores the history of Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock fandom, originally published in 2017. It was nominated for an Edgar Award in the category of "Best Critical/Biographical" by the Mystery Writers of America. It won an Agatha Award for "Best Nonfiction" in 2018.
Mycroft and Sherlock is a mystery novel by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse. It is the second novel in their "Mycroft Holmes" series utilizing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's characters of Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes. Having focused solely on Mycroft in the first novel, Abdul-Jabbar and Waterhouse were curious about the relationship between Mycroft and his brother and recognized that the sequel would need the introduction of Sherlock.
The Prisoner of the Devil is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche novel by Michael Hardwick, originally published in 1979.
Douglas Kerr is a British writer and academic who is best known for his work on Arthur Conan Doyle and George Orwell.
The Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Critical/Biographical Work, established in 1977, is a literary award presented as part of the Edgar Awards for a nonfiction critical or biographical hardcover, paperback, or electronic book.
