This blog is dedicated to Dominique Kalifa (1957-2020), French social and cultural historian, generous mentor, and cherished friend.

Portrait of Robin Walz from “Fantômas by the Bay” (City Lights Booksellers, San Francisco). Heather Marie © 2011

Welcome! This blog provides opportunities for readers, particularly those limited to the English language, to explore the cultural history of French crime and detection stories over course of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

Many of the characters and authors you read about in this blog may be new to you. Perhaps you have heard of some, but don’t know much about them. Others will be familiar, but you may learn surprising things.

Explore and enjoy!

Comments? If you have something to say about a particular post, use the “Comments” box at the end of the entry. If it’s about the content, I may post it and leave a reply. If the message is to me, I will reply to you personally through your email address.

The Author

I am a historian of French popular culture in the 19th and early-20th centuries (PhD University of California at Davis, MA San Francisco State University, BA Whitworth College).

Over the past two decades, I have been researching, publishing articles, writing reviews, and presenting conference papers on the cultural history of French crime writing. Through this blog, I hope to reach a wider community of crime, detective, and mystery fiction readers, and to whet the appetites of Francophiles who are limited primarily to English-language sources.

Selected Publications by Robin Walz on the History of Crime in France

Questions? You can reach me at: shadydetectives@gmail.com

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