She walks into the office, or the bar, or the frame, and the temperature changes. The detective knows better. He always knows better. And he is always, glorious…
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For most of the 2010s, cosy crime was the genre everyone in publishing was politely embarrassed by. It still sold steadily — it has always sold steadily — but t…
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There is a scene, somewhere near the middle of Ian Fleming's Casino Royale, that almost any reader of crime fiction can call up without effort. James Bond is at…
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There is an assumption that the older crime novel was built on, often without quite saying so: that danger lives elsewhere. The murder happens in the alley, or …
The contract that crime fiction makes with its reader is more explicit than almost any other genre's. It is made on the first page, usually in the first paragra…