This entry on Cameroonian crime fiction, while recognising the influence of Western conventions of the genre on national literary production, makes a case for the inclusion of other literary genres—namely, the dictator novel—within the crime fiction category. This is due to the fact that many of the criminal acts that feature in fiction written by Cameroonian authors are perpetrated by the state against its own citizens, and can be traced back to the foundational crime of European colonisation and national complicity with it. The novel is a tool with which Cameroonian writers continue to probe the many social and political ills of the authoritarian state, including its mistreatment of various marginalised communities. This entry also underscores the influence that specific authors, such as Chester Himes, have had on Cameroonian crime writers.