The editor, Barry Forshaw, and about 50 contributors have produced a remarkably comprehensive book of reference. Forshaw makes clear in his Introduction that the “remit of this encyclopedia has been as wide as possible: every possible genre that is subsumed under the heading of crime fiction is here, from the novel of detection to the blockbuster thriller to the novel of espionage”. Magazines (including the Strand, obviously), television series (there are entries for Z Cars, Inspector Frost and Cracker), films (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, as an up‐to‐date example) and the Crime Writers Association can all be found among the contents.
Readers will be likely to look first for their favourite authors. To choose two of the most famous: David Stuart Davies and Mark Campbell give us long informative articles on Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie respectively, with illustrations, bibliographies, web sites and cross‐references to relevant topics. All the major writers and numerous less familiar writers have similar detailed and sympathetic treatment. Some anthologists and critics, who may themselves have written crime fiction, are included – among them T. J. Binyon (by Philip Gooden), Peter Haining (by Mark Campbell) and Julian Symons (also by Philip Gooden). For contexts, we have substantial surveys like Martin Edwards's The Detective in British Fiction and Philip Scowcroft's The Shires: Rural England and Regional Crime Fiction. The last‐named article is one of those that readers of this Encyclopedia can unexpectedly and gratefully come across and so can be led to further exploration and knowledge – other articles with titles that intrigued me were “Clerical crime” (by Christine Simpson) and “Psychic Detectives” (by Kim Newman). It is rewarding too if you spot biographies of people you have never heard of but whose work may prove to be well worth reading.
The British pioneers of crime fiction are fully dealt with. Dickens was one of these, creating Inspector Bucket in Bleak House in 1853, and later writing The Mystery of Edwin Drood, left unfinished in 1870 because of his sudden death, as Laura Wilson tells us. His friend, Wilkie Collins, wrote The Moonstone (1868), the first detective novel, featuring another fictional detective in the person of Sergeant Cuff, discussed in an absorbing article on Collins by David Stuart Davies. Mike Ashley puts these two novelists in perspective in Origins of British Crime Fiction. So anyone interested in researching the history of crime novels and stories will find their beginnings and development in these pages: after the books of the early twentieth century (among them, G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown stories) came the so‐called Golden Age in the interwar years with Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr and Dorothy Sayers, followed eventually by such notable modern practitioners as P.D. James, Ruth Rendell and Ian Rankin.
There's plenty of interesting material here on genres, forms and varieties: science fiction, pulp, thrillers, gothic tales and penny dreadfuls, anthologies, and historical crime are some of the topics. Eve Tan Gee entertainingly discusses Tart Noir, one category I had not encountered before, featuring tough, wise‐cracking young women inspired by television heroines like Emma Peel in The Avengers. Critical approaches are suggested by articles on feminist readings, gay and lesbian writing, sexuality and realism. Adaptations are important in these days of the proliferation of the media: Mark Campbell surveys Film and Crime: Page to Screen (noting that Hitchcock set the standard) and TV.
Detectives: Small‐Screen Adaptations (emphasising the “unwaning popularity” of “genteel detectives” like Sherlock Holmes, Poirot and Miss Marple) – the editor tells us that the contributors were chosen “on the basis of their boundless enthusiasm for the genre” and that they were asked to “extol the virtues of writers they admire”. These criteria in no way detract from the sheer amount of information they give and indeed make everything here highly enjoyable to read –two examples out of many are Kim Newman's article on Ian Fleming and Susan Rowland's on Ruth Rendell.
I wish there had been a separate article on H.C. Bailey (although he is referred to on a number of occasions) and one on the Collins Crime Club, which published so many popular titles from 1930 onwards. A preliminary Guide to Related Topics (such as Golden Age Crime Fiction and Television), many portraits and other illustrations, a substantial Bibliography (including journals and web sites) and an excellent index make this an indispensable work of reference. The two volumes are handsomely produced and bound in colourful covers illustrated by Paul Slater.
