V.

Diversification and Consolidation

The crime novels of the 1980s saw increasing numbers of female investigators who, like their male counterparts, were quick-witted and capable of dealing with dangerous situations. Marcia Muller was described by fellow writer Sue Grafton as the 'founding mother' of the form for her creation of Sharon McCone in Edwin of the Iron Shoes (1977). Grafton's wisecracking private detective Kinsey Millhone is featured in a series of alphabetically titled mysteries, starting with “A” Is for Alibi, which was published in 1982, the same year that the gutsy, self-reliant private eye Victoria Iphigenia ('V. I.') Warshawski made her debut in Indemnity Only, written by Sara Paretsky. Patricia Cornwell brought autopsy analysis to the forefront of detective fiction with Postmortem (1990), centering on medical examiner Kay Scarpeta.

The combination of crime fiction with other popular genres, long a popular practice, gained new favor in the late 20th century. The historical detective story has several precursors, including Christie's Death Comes as the End (1944), set in ancient Egypt, but the true progenitors were Lillian de la Torre with Dr. Sam Johnson, Detector (1946) and John Dickson Carr with The Bride of Newgate (1950) and other novels. The Brother Cadfael stories of Ellis Peters (a pseudonym for Edith Pargeter), which take place in 12th-century Britain, are filled with warmth, humor, and young love, as well as sleuthing. The Name of the Rose (1983), also set in medieval Europe and written by Italian author Umberto Eco, emphasizes philosophical issues as much as it does mystery. Also of special interest are novels featuring the 7th-century Chinese sleuth Judge Dee, written by Dutch diplomat Robert van Gulik, and the Victorian novels by Peter Lovesey and Anne Perry. Lovesey stresses the excitement of the age, while Perry writes of its social and gender inequities.

Detective novels have been combined with science fiction, most successfully by Isaac Asimov in his Robots series. Randall Garrett set his Lord Darcy stories in an alternate universe where magic works yet fair-play detection is still possible. Gary Wolf's Who Censored Roger Rabbit? (1981) pits a hard-boiled private eye against lifelike cartoon characters.

Western novels and short stories from the pulp era often contained some elements of detection, especially W. C. Tuttle's Hashknife Hartley novels beginning in the 1920s. Later writers who used the Old West as background for more traditional detective stories have included Bill Pronzini in Quincannon (1985) and William L. DeAndrea in Written in Fire (1995). The courtroom novel of detection, made famous by Erle Stanley Gardner with his lawyer character Perry Mason, was continued by Scott Turow and John Grisham, though in their works, thriller elements often outweigh detection.

Fictional detectives have also had unusual professions and backgrounds. Rabbi Small, the creation of Harry Kemelman, is a Jewish version of Chesterton's Father Brown. Under the pseudonym Emma Lathen, Mary Lane Latsis and Martha Henissart write about banker-sleuth John Putnam Thatcher; as R. B. Dominic they chart the exploits of Ben Safford, a congressman with a talent for solving crimes. The former jockey Dick Francis created a number of detective and thriller heroes associated with horse racing. The novels of Aaron Elkins feature an anthropologist named Gideon Oliver. Tony Hillerman brought sensitive descriptions of Navajo culture to a popular audience in his novels about Native American police officers Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn. Similarly, H. R. F. Keating based his Inspector Ghote novels on East Indian culture and society.

In a sharp break with the tradition that the protagonists of crime novels had to be either celibate or (as was characteristic of the hard-boiled operatives of the pulp magazines) stridently heterosexual, contemporary fiction features several gay sleuths. This development started with the Pharaoh Love novels of George Baxt and the Dave Brandstetter novels of Joseph Hansen, and continued with the adventures of lesbian detective Lauren Laurano, written by Sandra Scoppetone.