I'm taking a class on Detective Fiction in the Fall and I'm open to suggestions. They don't have to be epics - short and sweet if possible. Reading through crimescene.com and just don't care much for the layout. If not detective-esque, a site for mysteries would be fine. Youtube videos are cool too.
Dunno if you ever read Blood Red Turns Dollar Green. A solid crime fiction based in, of all places, the old territory days of wrestling. Author Paul O'Brien certainly did his homework, and having helped JR on his bio probably helped.
Another one I liked was The Last Policeman by Ben Winters, a murder mystery set in an impending apocalypse. The world asks why this detective bothers with a murder when an asteroid is about to knock the world into kingdom come.
Both are the first part in trilogies, but I didn't read the others. I don't like mystery series. Doesn't make the above books any less enjoyable, and if you enjoy series', have at it.
My last suggestion is the aptly titled Murder Mysteries by Neil Gaiman. This is actually a short story that appeared in a handful of short collections and a graphic novel. The story is told as the First Death(not Cain and Abel), as told through the eyes of the Angel of Justice tasked with solving what Death means in a landscape in which Death has only just come to be. Characters include God and Lucifer, but while it's hosted by a religious backdrop, it's not a High-and-Mighty allegory. Just the perfect setting.
And I missed the ONLINE descriptor. Sorry!
Not really online, but play Snatcher for the Sega CD, through an emulator if you have to. It's a Kojima game, one of the top 3 best games on the system IMO.
"We are not entitled to our opinions. We are entitled to our informed opinions." - Harlan Ellison (1934 - 2018)
I'm also hopelessly unhelpful - I don't really read detective fiction, though I love a good Columbo - but I can recommend Homicide by David Simon. It hews close to non-fiction, much like The Wire, and does a good job of helping the reader understand how detectives function in reality (or at least did in the eighties).
L.A. Confidential is one of my all time favorite movies. Great cast, fantastic story that's just the right amount of convoluted, and a great homage to traditional noir cinema. I can't recommend it enough.
I'm also currently reading Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon. It's a comedy, but a detective novel at its core, and a very funny one at that. Might be worth a read for your class just so you can see some of the places the genre has gone that are less typical.
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