Historical Noir

It's one of the most successful – and surprising – of phenomena in the entire crime fiction genre: detectives (and proto-detectives) solving crimes in earlier eras. There is now an army of historical sleuths operating from the mean streets of ancient Rome to the Cold War era of the 1950s. And this astonishingly varied offshoot of the crime genre, as well as keeping bookshop tills ringing, is winning a slew of awards, notably the prestigious CWA Historical Dagger.

Barry Forshaw, one of the UK s leading experts on crime fiction, has written a lively, wide-ranging and immensely informed history of the genre, which might be said to have begun in earnest with Ellis Peters crime-solving monk Brother Cadfael in the 1970s and Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose in 1980 (with another monkish detective), but which has now taken readers to virtually every era and locale in the past.

As in earlier entries in his Noir series, Forshaw has produced the perfect reader's guide to a fascinating field; every major writer is considered, often through a concentration on one or two key books, and exciting new talents are highlighted.

'Historical Noir covers crime novels (and their authors) set in ancient Greece and beyond to the 1950s … what a splendid, varied bunch Forshaw provides' – Times

'A very worthy addition to this great series' – Crime Squad

Look out for the other books in Barry Forshaw's Noir series, Euro Noir, Nordic Noir, Brit Noir and American Noir, and for his latest book, Crime Fiction: A Reader's Guide.