whodunit

I read that mystery and hardboiled crime became sensations equally in England and the US. It was in the 1800's and that words like "detective" were brand new in law enforcement.

Anyone know of any history books behind mystery writers?

have you seen the wikipedia article on detective fiction?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detective_fiction

There's an interesting novel called "Poe Must Die" by Marc Olden that focuses on Poe working as a detective shortly after the publication of "The Mystery Roget" featuring his detective C. Auguste Dupin.

The Longman Anthology of Detective Fiction ed. Deane Mansfield-Kelley includes not only short fiction from different sub-genres but critical essays on each sub-genre (amateur detective, private detective, police), and the general introductory essay by John Ball gives a nice historical overview of detective/mystery fiction and its relation to the rise of professional police forces in the 19th century (in England and France, for example). Elliot L. Gilbert also edited a nice representative anthology of mystery short stories, and his introduction is very good. Murder and Moral Decay in Victorian England by Beth Kalikoff is a scholarly study (but very readable) of Victorians' interest in "true-crime" writing--sensational journalism, pamphlets, etc. It provides an interesting backdrop to the emergence of Doyle's Holmes in the late 1880s.

many thanks