The article examines the development of such a genre variety as the photoeкphrastic detective, embracing the period of the 1950s to the 1980s of the 20th century. The paper reveals the genre-forming potential of photographic eкphrasis, presented in the texts in the form of photograph descriptions found in classical detective literature (analyzed on the bases of A. Christie’s novel Mrs McGinty’s Dead, 1952) and its postmodernist version – in T. Findlay’s novel The Telling of Lies: A Mystery, 1986. Photography in the novels by A. Christie and T.
