The detective novels

A hanged man, a little rapped girl, crows, a haunted house, a corn of field, some snow, a lot of blood and as much crimes. These are all kind of elements that are really often present in the detective novels. Between stereotype and reality, they are still arousing our interest, especially the swedish ones which are the most famous. That is why, during our exchange in Sweden, we decided to work on them. As a consequence, we met the two school librarians of Katedralskolan, a librarian of the city, a bookseller and we also ask questions to Mons KALLENTOFT, a swedish writter from Linkoping, by email, in order to try to discover the reason of the beautiful success of this kind of books.

First of all, it will be interesting to see who are the reader of the detective novels, before to deal with what they bring them and which writter are the most famous.

So, for begin, the reading of detective novels is more an adult pleasure, especially women, around thirty five years old in average. We can explain this by the fact that these books are about adult stuffs like family life or children.

It an be approched by everybody: stories are written for young people like kids who are solving problems, teenagers use to watch their adaptation on TV with series or with movies, and old people in nursing home listen to these stories with CD. But if you read detective novels or not, it depends of your personnality in general.

We can also note that detective novels are more and more sold and read. For example, in the library where we went, 60% of thz sold books are detective novels with thrillers.

In a swedish detective novel, you can be taken into the story, it is exciting. It is something else, for your everyday's life. There are many descriptions, like the environment (the snow, the storm, the sun, rain...), so the reader can imagine a stressful universe what fascinated him.

 Swedish detective novels bring relaxation, they are easy to read and you can forget it very fast, also you can have chills, so it is very exciting.

 At the beginning, we know what it will happen, because it is a stereotype, and it is the biggest.

 But some people doesn't like those, because they have nightmares, they are afraid. Some persons think it is very realistic, they think it can happen in the street.

The most famous writers are Stieg LARSSON, who sold 15 million of books in the world, and his books are translated into 40 languages. Lars KEPLER is also very famous because they didn't want to give their identity, so there was a big doubt. But these stories are so bloody, so there is not a lot of people who like it. Mons KALLENTOFT is very popular in Linköping, because he writes about the city, real streets, so people who live here know the places. And we made an interview by mail with him, so you can read it on an other article.

Manon, Lucie, Enora, Rebecca, Gwenola