True Crime Detective Magazines

Editor, Dian Hanson

Taschen Books

Tower Books (Australia)

True Crime Detective Magazines is a beautiful book which follows this distinctly American genre from 1924 to 1969. This period is known as the Golden Age of bad girls when gangsters were turned into heroes and bad girls were heroines.

It was the height of the Jazz Age and the puritans had somehow got the ear of government and bringing in the prohibition of alcohol were able to turn ordinary citizens into criminals. Even your most law abiding fellows were not averse to slipping into the local speakeasy for a few after work. Corruption was rife and the police were held in nearly universal contempt. It was in this climate that respect for the law fell to its lowest ebb and criminals of all sorts were turned into celebrities. This strange cultural milieu gave birth to the American craze for detective and crime magazines.

True Detective hit in the street in 1924 and became instantly popular. By 1934 a diverse range of magazines in the detective and crime genre had flooded the news shelves and become a true cultural phenomenon. By the time the Great Depression had produced such colorful outlaws like Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, and John Dillinger, the magazines were so popular that cops and robbers alike vied to see themselves on the pages. Even FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover wrote regularly for what came to be called the "Dickbooks," referring to a popular slang term for the police.

As time passed and prohibition ended, the magazines had to find a new angle to survive. This new angle was sex and sin, soon where criminals had once been pride of place years before you now saw girls in slinky skirts and high heels. The new covers shouted "I Was a Girl Burglar—For Kicks,""Sex Habits of Women Killers," "Bride of Sin!,""She Played Me for a Sucker," and most succinctly, "Bad Woman."

True Crime Detective Magazines is a superbly produced hardcover which follows the evolution and transformation of this uniquely American genre from 1924 to 1969. Hundreds of covers and interior images from dozens of magazine titles tell the story, not just of the "detectives," but also of America’s attitudes towards sex, sin, crime and punishment over five decades. This is a book which will be just as fascinating to those interested in graphic design and art as to those seeking to understand the social history of the history.

At the same time it is also a documentation of one of the more bizarre publishing genres in magazine history and offers a fascinating insight into this sometimes overlooked field. With texts by magazine collector Eric Godtland, George Hagenaur and True Detective editor Marc Gerald, True Crime Detective Magazines is an informative and entertaining work and truly beautifully presented.

It is approx 340 pages, full colour, 9 x 11” and hardcover. Of course it is produced to Taschen’s always impressive high standards.

This review will appear in Volume 2 No.3 (2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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