Police procedural

The police procedural is a sub-genre of the mystery story which tries to demonstrate accurately the activities of a police force as they investigate crimes.

Written stories

Ed McBain

Perhaps the best example of the police procedural is the work of Ed McBain, the pseudonym of Evan Hunter. Starting in 1956, he wrote dozens of novels in the 87th Precinct series. Hunter continued write 87th Precinct novels almost until his death in 2005. Although these novels focus primarily on Detective Steve Carella, they encompass the work of many officers working alone and in teams, and Carella is not always present in any individual book. Hunter has used many different narrative approaches over the years, and the 87th Precinct novels are often works of great power, depth, and emotional richness, and often contain moments of terrific (if sometimes gruesome) humour.

Related Topics:
Pseudonym - Evan Hunter - 87th Precinct

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Dell Shannon

A prolific author of police procedurals, whose work has fallen out of fashion in the years since her death, is Elizabeth Linington writing as "Dell Shannon". Ms. Linington, who wrote under her own name as well as a number of pseudonyms, reserved her Dell Shannon pseudonym primarily for procedurals featuring Detective Luis Mendoza (1960-1986). These novels are often considered severely flawed by the author's far-right political viewpoint (she was a proud member of the John Birch Society), which occasionally works its way into the novels in the form of racism, sexism and extreme homophobia. However, they have a certain naive charm in their depiction of a kinder, gentler California, where the police were always "good guys" who solved all the crimes and respected the citizenry.

Related Topics:
Elizabeth Linington - John Birch Society - Racism - Sexism - Homophobia

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Georges Simenon

It is hard to say whether the Inspector Maigret novels of Georges Simenon represent procedurals because of their strong focus on the Inspector himself, but the cast of supporting characters frequently includes repeating members of his staff and some would argue that they qualify. Similarly, some critics suggest that the comic strip, Dick Tracy, is actually an early procedural, but this seems unlikely due to the strong focus on the protagonist.

Related Topics:
Georges Simenon - Comic strip - Dick Tracy

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Detective novel writers

It is difficult to disentangle the early roots of the procedural from its more common cousin, the detective novel, which features a police officer as protagonist. By and large, the better known novelists such as Ngaio Marsh produced work that falls more squarely into the province of the detective novel. Nevertheless, some of the work of authors less well known today, like Freeman Wills Crofts' novels about Inspector French or some of the work of the prolific team of G.D.H. and Margaret Cole, might be considered as the antecedents of today's police procedural.

Related Topics:
Ngaio Marsh - Freeman Wills Crofts - G.D.H. - Margaret Cole

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~