Meny
Portrait image of Tom Egeland Photo: Ola Erikson / Forflex (2016)

Sample of authors

Egeland, Tom

Norwegian author and journalist, born in Oslo and raised in the suburb of Kalbakken in Groruddalen, where his parents had a couple of shops. One of his forefathers is Jon Flatabø from Kvam in Hardanger, who wrote so-called ‘folkedikter’ and was one of the pioneers in Norwegian popular literature. As a young teenager, Egeland was for a short period active in the Christian youth club Heimdal, but he...

Further reading

Theme article

History of crime fiction

By: Johan Wopenka

Depending upon how one wishes to define the concept ‘crime fiction’, it is possible to trace its history and roots back in time. When Dorothy L. Sayers compiled her comprehensive three-volume anthology Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror (1928–34) she started with two stories from the Old Testament, and when Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee (alias Ellery Queen) wrote their fundamental The Detective Short Story : A Bibliography (1942), they listed eight Chinese collections of short stories which are believed to have been written down between 600 A.D. and 1800 A.D., some of them containing stories based on an older, oral tradition.

Further reading

Literary figures

Reginald Wexford

Gender: Male

Inspector Reginald “Reg” Wexford, who operates in the fictional town of Kingsmarkham in Sussex, was a traditional detective when Ruth Rendell first introduced him. He is overweight and has a foul temper, which leads to conflicts with his superiors, but he has a pleasant and understanding family. Wexford has become more tolerant over the years and has developed into a major authority on human cha...

Further reading