Austrian jurist and criminologist Hans Gross published Handbuch für Untersuchungsrichter in Graz, Austria — translated into English as Criminal Investigation — a comprehensive manual covering the scientific analysis of crime scenes, physical evidence, and witnesses. The book synthesised advances in chemistry, biology, microscopy, and psychology to create a systematic methodology for criminal investigation. It became the foundational text of scientific criminology and was used in police and legal training across Europe and North America.

Gross's systematic approach to evidence — treating the crime scene as a document to be read — directly parallels the close-reading methodologies of literary criticism developing in the same decades. The idea that every detail at a scene is meaningful resonated with the New Critics and with writers like Borges who saw the detective method as an analogy for interpretive reading. Gross himself coined the term 'criminology' and helped establish crime investigation as a science — a shift that shaped the detective genre's literary prestige.