This course introduces students to early works in the development of the "detective story" (Edgar Allan Poe, Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) and the ways in which those early works help establish the foundations for a variety of "crime fictions" that have steadily grown in popularity throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Students will learn to appreciate authors working in different times, places and settings and to explore the criminal mind and those tasked with solving criminal cases and fighting criminal activity (whether amateur detective, private eye or police officer). Along the way, students will try their hand at writing their own pieces of crime fiction and produce short analytical pieces examining the books and films they encounter.