Nationality International: Detective Fiction in the Late Twentieth Century

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, crime fiction is a topranking literary genre, and has become part of mainstream culture. The crime novel’s position of pre-eminence derives from its broad fan base and its readership, with publishing houses devoting whole series and large print runs to the genre. Evidence of the prevalence of a popular obsession with crime stories is also to be found in the sophisticated typological variety of crime fiction, present in literature and in film. Readers who favour novels with female detectives are not necessarily enamoured of ethno-detective novels, while hard-boiled thrillers differ significantly from fantasy detective fiction. Among the television shows starring detectives, every variety of the genre is represented. In recent decades we have also seen crime fiction gain in popularity in the spheres of literary experiment and literary theory.