A Note on Crime Fiction Publishers

For better or for worse, global crime fiction has, in recent years, become increasingly synonymous with thrillers (psychological or otherwise)—a sub-genre that focuses largely on shock value and action set-pieces to attract readers, while the mystery element itself may be subdued or muted. There are exceptions, of course, and there's really no rule that states thrillers cannot have a solid mystery quotient as well. But, should you be on the lookout for modern mysteries with memorable instances of analytical, rational deduction, you are not likely to find them with the frequency you might have expected a century ago.

What's equally true, however, is the fact that the decade has seen a renewed interest in unearthing and republishing little-known titles and classics from years past. It's an unenviable position for a crime fiction aficionado—to be able to enjoy the best the genre has to offer from eras old and new. And rarely has it been easier (and harder, at the same time) to find a niche for yourself in the vast world of crime fiction.

If you, like me, prefer page-turners and little-known gems going back several decades, there's good reason to be excited. A number of publishing houses have been reprinting these lost or forgotten works—and, in the process, are doing yeoman's service in chronicling and telling the story of the evolution of this much-loved genre. While this is, by no means, an exhaustive list, here are a few publishing houses and imprints that deserve a mention:

• Pushkin Vertigo: In the five years since its inception, this imprint under Pushkin Press has been making all the right noises. The nearly three dozen titles it has published so far represents the best of both contemporary and classic crime fiction from around the world. Immensely global in its outlook, the Pushkin Vertigo collection features writing from Argentina, France and Italy to Australia, Japan and Russia. The books also showcase the diverse charms and topics the genre encompasses—from puzzle plot, cosy mysteries and psychological and literary thrillers to historical crime fiction and ones that have more social, realistic underpinnings. One of the things that I would love to see from Pushkin Vertigo though is an introduction to the works they publish—with its addition, I believe the series can be a wonderful entry point into the genre for the uninitiated.
• Locked Room International: Publisher and translator John Pugmire's brainchild, Locked Room International (LRI), will probably appeal to a specific subset of crime fiction fans. As the name rather obviously suggests, LRI publishes obscure gems in the world of locked room and impossible crime mysteries. Having carved a name for themselves with their series, in translation, of Paul Halter's works, LRI's collection, so far, has centred predominantly on Japanese and French mysteries. Highly recommended for those who care for the mystery more than the name or pedigree of its author. While there's definite scope for improvement in the copyediting and proofreading departments, the detailed footnotes and the informative introductions that provide the relevant contexts into the authors, their works (as a whole) and the book in question should make it worthwhile, if you can go that extra bit with your budget.
• Detective Club Crime Classics: Striking, pulpish book jackets steal the limelight for this set of hardbacks published by HarperCollins Publishers. The line of books (apparently, a resurrection of an old, pre-1930 Collins list) with a wonderfully old-school feel to them are reprints of crime fiction classics from France, the US and England. Featured authors include pioneering old-timers such as Anthony Berkeley Cox, E. C. Bentley, Wilkie Collins, Philip Macdonald, Hugh Conway, John Rhode. Edgar Wallace, Gaston Leroux, Anna Katherine Green, Émile Gaboriau, among many others.
• British Library Crime Classics: The resurgence of interest in the Golden Age of Detective Fiction owes much to the efforts of organisations such as the British Library. Its publishing arm brings out the British Library Crime Classics, a series of forgotten British crime books from the aforementioned period that has revived interest in the contributions of lesser-known authors (such as Anthony Rolls, John Bude, Mavis Doriel Hay, E. C. R. Lorac, Mary Kelly, Margot Bennett, among others). These selections from the British Library's enormous collection are a true treasure trove for students of the genre—and you should not also miss out on the several fascinatingly themed short-story anthologies curated and edited by Martin Edwards, the president of the Detection Club. And similar to the Detective Club Crime Classics, the richly illustrated covers of the British Library Crime Classics books are a sight to behold.
• American Mystery Classics: In some ways, American Mystery Classics is the American equivalent of British Library Crime Classics. The line of books, personally selected by respected scholar and editor Otto Penzler, consist of reissues of classics from the annals of American mystery fiction, many of which had long gone out of print. The collection is shining a long-awaited light on authors such as Mary Roberts Rinehart, Dorothy B. Hughes, Anthony Boucher, Vincent Starrett, Todd Downing, Craig Rice, and many more.
• Ananda Publishers: Crime fiction in Bengali has a long history, stretching back more than a century. You may be familiar with Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay's Byomkesh Bakshi or Satyajit Ray's Feluda series, but these are merely the most popular among the scores of titles that were (in many cases) written by individual writers throughout the 20th century. As with its evolution elsewhere, crime fiction in Bengali was a derivative of the form that developed in Britain and the US but later came unto its own, using and building upon the very rules that governed their inspirations abroad. For those interested in exploring most of what Bengali crime fiction has to offer, they probably wouldn't need to look any further than Ananda Publishers, a publishing giant in Bengali literature. Your quest will be made easier by the fact that Ananda Publishers brings out anthologies in several volumes that cover the entire body of an author's work, which means that you don't need to go hunting for individual novels.

The best part of all this is that this list barely scratches the tip of the iceberg. Notable exclusions here include Vintage's collection of crime titles (the complete set of Margery Allingham's books and Cecil Day-Lewis' Nigel Strangeways series, for instance), Picador and Pan Macmillan (whose catalogues include the likes of Andrea Camilleri and Walter Mosley) and Mysterious Press (another offering from Penzler that has previously republished the works of authors such as Brett Halliday and the excellent Christianna Brand). Then, there are publishers that rarely come to our notice unless expressly pointed out. One such example is Dean Street Press, which has been painstakingly republishing the works of authors such as Christopher Bush, Brian Flynn, Annie Haynes and Anne Morice (all of whom were once popular but have since been largely ignored), thereby rescuing them from oblivion.

As mentioned earlier, this is not a go-to list—and the fact that several other options exist just goes to show that finding the right crime fiction book for yourself can be quite a challenging task. In such a scenario, it always helps to know where exactly you need to look to find what you want. I hope that this write-up has been a small guide in that regard.

Above all, what I am most eager to find out are the efforts crime fiction publishers will take to bring the genre to a new era altogether—one that looks as much to the past as it does to the present and future.