Crime fiction is a typically 19th-, 20th- and 21st-century genre, dominated by British and American writers. This article explores its historical development as a genre.

Crime Fiction came to be recognised as a distinct literary genre, with specialist writers and a devoted readership, in the 19th century. Earlier novels and stories were typically devoid of systematic attempts at detection: There was a detective, whether amateur or professional, trying to figure out how and by whom a particular crime was committed; there were no police trying to solve a case; neither was there any discussion of motives, alibis, the modus operandi, or any of the other elements which make up the modern crime writing.

An early example of an Arabic-language crime story is "The Three Apples", one of the tales narrated by Scheherazade in the One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights). In this tale, a fisherman discovers a heavy, locked chest along the Tigris river and he sells it to the Abbasid Caliph, Harun al-Rashid, who then has the chest broken open only to find inside it the dead body of a young woman who was cut into pieces. Harun orders his vizier, Ja'far ibn Yahya, to solve the crime and find the murderer within three days, or be executed if he fails his assignment. The story has been described as a "whodunit" murder mystery Unlike the modern crime fiction genre, no investigation is conducted, and the case is instead solved by two men confessing to the crime. The focus of the story shifts to the caliph's demand to find a slave blamed for having an affair with the woman, instigating her husband's crime of passion, but again no investigation is conducted. Ja'far learns the true story, and exonerates the slave, by chance.

Gong'an is a genre of Ming dynasty Chinese crime fiction that includes Bao Gong An (Chinese:包公案) and the 18th-century novel Di Gong An (Chinese:狄公案). The latter was translated into English as Dee Goong An (Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee) by Dutch sinologist Robert Van Gulik, who then used the style and characters to write an original Judge Dee series.

The hero of these novels is typically a traditional judge or similar official based on historical personages, such as Judge Bao (Bao Qingtian) or Judge Dee (Di Renjie). Although the historical characters may have lived in an earlier period (such as the Song or Tang dynasties), the novels are often set in the later Ming or Manchu period.

These novels differ from the Western genre in several points as described by van Gulik:

Van Gulik chose Di Gong An to translate because it was in his view closer to the Western tradition and more likely to appeal to non-Chinese readers.

The history of Hindi crime stories remains very rich and evolving as a part of Indian literature, through general socio-political changes and increased interest in psychological and social complexities. The genre has seen remarkable development from its early stages until the modern era by blending traditional storytelling and contemporary narrative techniques.