"In the first major history of crime fiction in fifty years, the book traces the evolution of the genre from the eighteenth century to the present, offering brand-new perspective on the world's most popular form of fiction"--NoveList Plus.

Los Angeles is a city of reinvention. Many come to start anew, to strike it big. Many kill the person they once were, the person they left behind. And in turn, someone else can turn around and kill them, too--permanently. A pool boy enters a secluded, upscale home and discovers two bodies floating in the pool. The heir of an Italian shoe empire and the even wealthier neighbor. The house is untouched, but a "double" in Bel Air certainly makes this...

After the SS rules a doctor's mysterious death a suicide, the man's widow and Criminal Inspector Horst Schenke investigate while trying not to run afoul of the Gestapo.

In Khan's Blood Betrayal, even as Det. Inaya Rahman investigates the police killing of a young Black man in Blackwater falls, a drug raid in neighboring Denver ends with the killing of teenager Mateo Ruiz by a police officer whose father begs Inaya to prove his innocence—never mind that he himself was one of her major opponents when she was on the Denver police force.

A perplexing mystery introduces rookie detective Samson Kolechko in Kyiv as he is tackling his first case, set against real life details of the tumultuous early 20th century.

"How far would you go to keep your family safe? Lorraine Henry is generally content to keep her head down and get on with her work as a records clerk at the Masterton police station. But when children start going missing in her small town, Lo can't help but pay attention. After all, she has Bradley, her young nephew, to worry about, and the cops don't seem to be putting much effort into finding the kids. And then the unthinkable happens: Bradley disappears....

"Manhattan, 1923. Scandalous flapper Dot King is found dead in her Midtown apartment, a bottle of chloroform beside her and a fortune in jewels missing. Dot's headline-making murder grips the city. It also draws a clutch of lovers, parasites, and justice seekers into one of the city's most mesmerizing mysteries. Among them: Daily News crime reporter Julia Harpman, chasing the story while navigating a male-dominated industry; righteous NYPD detective...

On a stormy winter night in the Scottish Highlands, Remie Yorke is working her last shift as the night manager of the Mackinnon, a remote lodge where she and two guests are the only inhabitants. The closest building to the lodge is the prison where Remie's younger brother Cameron had been incarcerated until his sudden death a year prior. A man purporting to be Police Constable Gaines knocks at the lodge door and claims to have been in an accident...