Crime Fiction since 1800

Since its appearance nearly two centuries ago, crime fiction has gripped readers'' imaginations around the world. Detectives have varied enormously: from the nineteenth-century policemen (and a few women), through stars like Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple, to newly self-aware voices of the present - feminist, African American, lesbian, gay, postcolonial and postmodern.

Stephen Knight''s fascinatin...