In the second decade of the twenty-first century, crime fiction remains one of the most popular genres among both readers and writers. This compilation of essays attempts to trace the reasons behind this ongoing popularity as well as to offer a closer reading of a number of crime fiction texts from English, American, Swedish, Italian, Japanese and other national literatures. It contains twenty-one original essays written by scholars and practitioners of crime fiction which discuss key concepts in the field of crime fiction studies: generic diversity, the evolution of characters, the growing significance of space and place and reader response.This book includes a short story by David Malcom.