One of the leading authorities in readers' advisories. Covers all popular reading categories and their subgenres: historical fiction, westerns, crime fiction, adventure, romance, science fiction, fantasy, horror, Christian fiction, and emerging genres (women's fiction, chick lit).

Alphabetically arranged, annotated listing of journals and pulp magazines that featured or critiqued mystery, detective, and espionage fiction from the 19th and 20th centuries.

2nd ed. A guide to reference resources on mystery and detective fiction: encyclopedias and dictionaries, maps and atlases, writer's associations and awards, biographies, character indexes, web resources, and more.

Mystery and detective novels are popular fictional genres within Western literature. As such, they provide a wealth of information about popular art and culture. When the genre develops within various cultures, it adopts, and proceeds to dominate, native expressions and imagery. American mystery and detective novels appeared in the late nineteenth century. This reference provides a selective guide to the important criticism of American mystery and detective novels and presents general features of the genre and its historical development over the past two centuries. Critical approaches covered in the volume include story as game, images, myth criticism, formalism and structuralism, psychoanalysis, Marxism and more. Comparisons with related genres, such as gothic, suspense, gangster, and postmodern novels, illustrate similarities and differences important to the understanding of the unique components of mystery and detective fiction.

Covering a broad spectrum of primary and secondary reference resources about mystery and detective fiction, this annotated bibliography focuses on all print and key electronic sources in the field that are produced in English. Organized thematically, it reviews encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, annotated guides, bibliographies, bio-bibliographies, vade mecums, compendiums, indexes, and so on. Many Web sites are also described. Lengthy, informed reviews often provide evaluative information and compare books to similar or related titles. Essential to researchers, this is a valuable guide for any collection that holds a substantial number of mystery and detective titles, including college, university, public, and some high school libraries.

Equally useful for novice librarians and seasoned gumshoes, this handbook * Summarizes the history of mystery fiction, highlighting key figurss in its development * Covers the latest and most popular classic titles in the genre, as well as select suspense and thriller fiction with crossover appeal * Offers examples of how library staff can help readers move back and forth from fiction to nonfiction * Suggests ways to conduct an effective reference interview I Includes several well-chosen booklists, practical programming ideas, and a brand new compendium of print and web-based resources

Crime fiction has been one of the most popular genres since the 19th century, but has roots in works as varied as Sophocles, Herodotus, and Shakespeare. In this Very Short Introduction Richard Bradford explores the history of the genre, by considering the various definitions of "crime fiction"and looking at how it has developed over time. Discussing the popularity of crime fiction worldwide and its various styles; the role that gender plays within the genre; spy fiction, and legal dramas and thrillers; he explores how the crime novel was shaped by the work of British and American authorsin the 18th and 19th centuries. Highlighting the works of notorious authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Raymond Chandler - to name but a few - he considers the role of the crime novel in modern popular culture and asks whether we can, and whether we should, consider crime fiction serious"literature".