Knowledge of the history of Hungarian crime fiction remains partial due to the absence of systematic foundational research. Nevertheless, three distinct phases in its development can be identified. The first phase began in the early 1900s and ended with the communist takeover in 1948. During this period, the genre circulated in increasingly diverse forms thanks to both translations and original works (often by authors publishing under English pseudonyms). In the second phase, following the Soviet occupation, crime fiction was initially banned but began to develop with growing dynamism from the 1960s. This momentum was interrupted by the political transition of 1989, after which a third phase of slow re-establishment of the genre ensued. As a result, the crime novel has once again undergone a period of dynamic expansion and reconfiguration within the broader Hungarian literary field.