The 20 Greatest Fall Jackets in the History of Crime Fiction

I’m not going to pretend there’s a particularly good reason why this article should exist. I like fall jackets. This is a crime fiction site. The annals of crime fiction are littered with good fall jackets, if you only know where to look. What is a fall jacket, exactly? Well, that’s another good question, and as far as I’m concerned there isn’t any definitive answer. Fall weather varies depending on what part of the world you’re in, or frankly what day of the week it is. Tweeds and other wools tend to fit the bill, especially when the pattern is plaid. A certain weight is probably intrinsic to the fall jacket—it needs to be warm enough, but not too warm, these aren’t meant for the dead of winter—and while the color palette tends to skew toward earth tones, the occasional bright orange or red adds a nice flash to the sartorial bounty. For the sake of the exercise, I’ll say up front that I’ve excluded leather jackets. That’s a whole separate post, and one I fully intend to write one day when there’s time. (Paradoxically, I’ve decided to allow satin jackets into the fold; absurd, I know. Even worse, I’ve included a few trench coats, another article of clothing that warrants its own feature.) For now, let’s just focus a few minutes on the delightful and occasionally iconic outerwear donned by major characters in crime and mystery features over the years. I’m not saying these movies/shows are all set during autumn. Once again, this is no scientific survey, and it’s certainly not a Vogue spread. Just an idiosyncratic offering from an enthusiastic amateur.

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Without further ado, these are, in my humble opinion, the 20 greatest fall jackets in crime fiction. (If you find any of these for purchase, let me know.)