A brief history of crime fiction

In this video, I highlight a number of key traits that stand out in the evolution of the crime fiction genre. It’s quite likely that you’ve already noticed some of these formats and patterns on your own. The ‘police procedural’ is a particularly common one and is a primary source for some of the painful puns that you’re likely to see littered throughout this course.

Good cop, bad cop

I mentioned towards the end of the video that that some of these crime fiction categories and formats have been mixed together to form hybrids. Are there any particular format combinations that you’re fond of? Are there any that you think have been done to death?