"Whilst there is a definite recipe for crime fiction it is flexible enough to allow individual composers to be creative and make their message clear."

"Genre is merely defined by conventions used in previous texts and assumptions made by society and critics. It is therefore tactless to attempt to confine a text to a specific genre if it is developed from a hybrid of stereotyped conventions which can be manipulated in order to target the composer's targeted message"

Crime fiction (CF) is a genre which can be perceived from a variety of angles. As an audience, we require a certain number of conventions to define a text as a CF, and these conventions are usually defined by the assumptions of society and critics. However, it is integral to have a number of these conventions present in order for the genre to be recognised. Firstly, there must be a...