Police Procedurals in Novel, Movies, and TV (OLLI)

A sub-category of crime fiction, police procedurals focus on police detectives gathering evidence, interviewing witnesses, and interrogating suspects to solve their cases.

This survey of the genre will examine its history, starting with Wilkie Collins’s Victorian novel, The Moonstone, dissect its unique elements, and cover familiar fiction and TV fare, including CSI, Rizzoli and Isles, Bosch and Renee Ballard, and the novels of Tony Hillerman, Karen Slaughter, and Michael Connelly. Along the way, we will explore popular and lesser-known British, French, Swedish, German, and Italian television dramas (many of them based on novels), from Beck, Montalbano, and Candace Renoir to Prime Suspect (Jane Tennison), Vera, and Broadchurch—a veritable smorgasbord of murder-most-foul investigations for police procedural enthusiasts.