TRUE CRIME - DETECTIVE MAGAZINES 1924-1969

In 1924 the 'True crime detective magazine' genre was born, and it thrived and evolved in all its fishnet-stocking, smoking-gun glory until its demise in the mid-1990s. Cashing in on people's secret voyeuristic, morbid natures, magazines such as True Detective and American Detective profiled scandalous crimes and the villains - often sexy women in stiletto heels - who committed them. Over the years, the magazines became more and more focused on crime and sexuality, until they became smutty to the point of being too racy for the newsstands. Approximately 500 pages of covers, spreads, and text will explore this sensational magazine genre in vibrant detail. Among the texts included are a profile of the eccentric man who invented the genre in 1924, profiles of the cover artists, a decade-by-decade analysis of what sort of crimes were most popular with readers, profiles of the writers (many of whom went on to fame in crime fiction writing), a feminist scholar's analysis of the portrayal of women on the magazine covers, and a reprint from a 1986 forensic magazine damning the magazines as porno for sadists.