This book investigates the development of crime fiction in the 1880s and 1890s, challenging studies of late-Victorian crime fiction which have given undue prominence to a handful of key figures and have offered an over-simplified analytical framework, thereby overlooking the generic, moral, and formal complexities of the nascent genre.

'Ordinary Secret Sinners' : Robert Louis Stevenson's "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1886) -- 'The most popular book of modern times' : Fergus Hume's "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab" (1886) -- '"L'homme c'est rien - l'oeuvre c'est tout"' : the Sherlock Holmes stories and work -- Something for 'the silly season' : Policing and the Press in Israel Zangwill's "The Big Bow Mystery "(1891) -- Tales of 'mean streets' : the criminal-detective in Arthur Morrison's "The Dorrington Deed-Box" (1897) -- A Criminal in Disguise' : class and empire in Guy Boothby's "A Prince of Swindlers" (1897).