Police procedural

A crime-fiction genre that follows police investigators and emphasizes the methods, routines, and institutional work involved in solving crimes.

Criminal investigation: The systematic effort to establish whether a crime occurred, identify suspects, and gather evidence. Police procedurals organize their plots around the steps of criminal investigation.
Crime scene investigation: The examination of a crime scene to document and collect evidence. Its methodical search gives procedural plots a visible first stage of inquiry.
Edgar Allan Poe: An American writer whose detective stories helped establish conventions of crime fiction. Poe’s analytical detective fiction predates the modern police-centered form and provides a key point of comparison.
Detective fiction: A genre of fiction centered on investigating and solving crimes or mysteries. Police procedurals belong to detective fiction but distinguish themselves through institutional police work.
Police drama: A dramatic genre centered on police officers, their work, and their personal or institutional conflicts. Police procedurals often take the form of police dramas, though the broader genre need not follow procedural conventions.
Forensic science: The application of scientific methods to questions arising in legal proceedings. Laboratory findings can turn physical traces into leads or challenge investigators’ assumptions.
Police interrogation: Questioning by police intended to obtain information from a suspect or witness. Interviews generate leads while revealing conflicts between testimony and evidence.
Émile Gaboriau: A French novelist known for nineteenth-century detective stories featuring police investigator Monsieur Lecoq. Lecoq’s investigations helped establish the detective as a professional police figure in fiction.
Hardboiled fiction: Crime fiction marked by tough, cynical protagonists and unsentimental depictions of violence and corruption. Hardboiled stories often privilege a lone investigator’s outlook over a police unit’s collective routines.
Ensemble cast: A group of principal characters whose stories share substantial attention in a work of fiction. A team cast lets a procedural distribute investigative tasks across specialists and ranks.

Linked from 22 pages