Academic Sleuth
Working in the academic milieu, the academic sleuth is a prevalent character type in crime and mystery fiction. By far the greatest number of academic sleuths have come from the ...
Agatha Christie
(1890–1976),novelist: b. and brought up in Torquay; disappears to Harrogate; d. Wallingford; buried in Cholsey. The Mousetrap 1952, The 4.50 from Paddington 1957, At Bertram's Hotel 1965.
Allusion, Literary
Quotations from and references to the works of authors famous in English literature have specific significance in three different aspects of detective fiction. The first is the use of a ...
Amanda Cross
(1926–2003),American academic and detective story writer, educated at Wellesley College and Columbia University, and from 1972 Professor of English at Columbia; she is the author of critical studies ...
Anthony Boucher
Pseudonym of William Anthony Parker White (1911–1968), American mystery writer and influential critic.Although his novels were considered “modest triumphs,” Boucher was best known as a critic, ...
arson
N.The intentional or reckless destruction or damaging of property by fire without a lawful excuse. There are two forms of arson corresponding to the two forms of criminal damage in the Criminal ...
audience participation
1. Any active involvement of audience members in a live public performance, whether or not planned as part of the performance.2. The involvement of audience members in a broadcast programme—primarily ...
Bluestocking Sleuth
“Bluestocking,” a term sometimes used derisively for women engaged in literary pursuits, was coined in the eighteenth century in reference to literary gatherings in London at which the guests ...
Charlie Chan
Fictional Chinese-American detective working for the Honolulu police force, created by the American writer Earl Derr Biggers (1884–1933).
China, Crime and Mystery Writing In Greater
China is an ancient and prolific source of crime and detective stories. Intriguing crimes, detection, and Socratic investigation figured in Chinese scriptural classics and histories from before the ...
Coincidence
In every plot, individuals and events must fit together—that is, coincide. The term “coincidence,” taken as an artificial or noncausal conjunction of characters or events, appears in varying degree ...
coroner
n. the official who presides at an inquest. He or she must be either a medical practitioner or a lawyer of at least five years’ standing.
Cozy Mystery
A term first used in a review in the Observer 25 May 1958, “cozy” refers to a subgenre of the novel of detection defined by its light tone, element of ...
crime fiction
A single problem defines crime fiction during the Edwardian period: the problem of of Sherlock Holmes. From the first appearance of Arthur Conan Doyle's amateur detective in A Study in ...
Criminal Investigation Department
(CID)A body of detectives within a police force. At one time the department was largely independent of the uniform branch of a police force with its own management structure. It is now largely ...
Detective Novel
The detective novel is that form of long fiction centered upon investigation of a criminal problem. Typically the narrative presents the focal crime as seemingly insoluble by ordinary means and ...
Double Bluff
Is a technique of seducing the reader into making erroneous assumptions about the murderer or the victim, or about the villain's motive, method, or alibi, or about the detective's accuracy. ...
Dying Message
The clue of the dying message, usually the written or spoken words of a murder victim just before death, has been a staple of mystery fiction for more than a ...
Earl Derr Biggers
(1884–1933),born in Ohio, educated at Harvard, became a journalist in Boston and later won fame as a popular novelist and playwright. He is best known for his Seven Keys ...
Eccentrics
Eccentric characters fit into detective and mystery fiction much as the Gravedigger fits into Hamlet or the Porter into Macbeth, with this difference: that the comic form and structure of ...
