Critics of crime fiction dismiss the genre as hopelessly reactionary, but its history tells a different story. From hard-boiled American detective novels to the explosion of Scandi-noir, crime fiction has been deeply influenced by socialist writers.

Crime fiction’s critics have long argued that the genre is inherently conservative. Nicholas Royle and Andrew Bennett elaborated on this in Introduction to Literature, Theory, and Criticism, noting that the genre’s strictures compel detectives to pursue individuals rather than institutions. As a result, society at large can never be the culprit, leaving less space for social critique. The story structure relies on the assumption of a harmonious status quo: a crime disrupts it and the detective is called upon to restore it by either killing or

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