Drawing his narrative themes from the sensation novel and the popular stage, Charles Dickens heavily freighted most of his plots with mystery, crime, and suspense. His chief legacies to crime literature, as it is narrowly understood, include his vibrant portrait of the London underworld in Oliver Twist (1838); the introduction of the first police detective in English fiction, Inspector Bucket of Bleak House (1852-1853); and one of the most intriguing literary puzzles of all time, the unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870).

Dickens's mystery and crime fiction is not generally remarkable for plot construction, ingenious detection, or formal innovation. His major contributions to the genre are his imaginative understanding of criminal psychology and of the destructive and self-destructive impulses that outwardly normal people share with the outlaw; his relation of fictional crime and punishment to social concerns; and his loving portrayal of early police detectives. With these strengths and...