A craft dossier · foundation for AI-driven crime fiction

How a machine learns to write the mean streets.

A reference on the craft and the schools of P.I. & crime fiction — written for the reader who is a writing agent, not a novelist. Read it and you can classify a crime story by school and construct one a genre editor won't call a cheat.

Enter the Schools → For Agents
Pillar 01

The Fair-Play Contract

Every clue the detective sees, the reader sees. Surprising, yet inevitable. Thou shalt not cheat thy reader.

Pillar 02

The Coded Investigator

Not "who did it" but "will the detective hold the line." The code is the character.

Pillar 03

Question & Answer

The engine is push-and-pull. Each fact complicates rather than simplifies — the pages keep turning.

The Craft, in seven files

Each chapter turns a source module into operational rules and a directive an agent can execute. Read in order, or pull the one your case needs.

  1. CASE FILE № 01 Structure & the Fair-Play Contract The investigation arc, the fair-play contract, clue-planting, and building the crime backward.
  2. CASE FILE № 02 The Investigator The code as character, the wound and stake, the series arc, and competence vs. fallibility.
  3. CASE FILE № 03 Voice, Style & Setting Hardboiled voice, atmosphere, the five functions of dialogue, and place as character.
  4. CASE FILE № 04 The Mechanics of Mystery The question-and-answer engine, POV consequences, staging the reveal, and the four cardinal pitfalls.
  5. CASE FILE № 05 The Cast — Suspects, Motive & the Reveal Building a credible suspect pool, the villain hidden in plain sight, and rising stakes.
  6. CASE FILE № 06 Hardboiled, Noir & the P.I. Tradition The hardboiled≠noir switch, the puzzle↔atmosphere spectrum, and the modern reinventions of the archetype.
  7. CASE FILE № 07 The Writing Process The outline-vs-discovery debate, daily practice, mystery-specific revision, and beginner traps.
  8. CASE FILE № ∞ For Agents Put the seven files to work — the analysis and generation routines that make this the foundation for AI-driven crime fiction.

Then map the territory

The Schools lay out the whole form on one cozy ↔ noir spectrum — the discriminating features that let an agent place a target style before it writes a line. For Agents turns the craft into an analysis method and a generation method.