Detective. What it is? Detective genre

Despite its relative youth as an independent literary movement, detective fiction is one of the most popular genres today. The secret of such success is simple - the mystery captivates. The reader does not passively follow what is happening, but takes an active part in it. He predicts events and builds his own versions. Grigory Chkhartishvili (Boris Akunin), the author of the famous series of novels about detective Erast Fandorin, once told in an interview how to write a detective story. According to the writer, the main factor for creating an exciting plot is a game with the reader, which needs to be filled with unexpected moves and traps.

Be inspired by example

Many authors of popular detective stories do not hide the fact that they received inspiration from reading the works of outstanding masters of this genre. For example, the American writer Elizabeth George has always admired the work of Agatha Christie. Boris Akunin could not resist the charades of the great author of detective prose. The writer generally admitted that he adores detective stories in the English style and often uses techniques characteristic of them in his works. It’s probably not worth saying much about what contribution Arthur Conan Doyle made to the detective genre with his famous character. Because creating a hero like Sherlock Holmes is the dream of any writer.

Become a criminal

To write a real detective story, you need to invent a crime, since the mystery associated with it is always at the heart of the plot. This means that the author will have to try on the role of an attacker. To begin with, it is worth deciding what the nature of this crime will be. Most famous detective stories are based on the investigation of murders, thefts, robberies, kidnappings and blackmail. However, there are also many examples where the author captivates the reader with an innocent incident that leads to the solution to a larger mystery.

Turn back time

After choosing a crime, the author will have to think it over carefully, since a real detective story contains all the details that will lead to the denouement. Masters of the genre advise using the reverse time technique. First you need to decide who committed the crime, how he did it and why. Then you need to imagine how the attacker will try to hide what he has done. Do not forget about accomplices, evidence left behind and witnesses. These clues build a compelling plot that gives the reader the opportunity to conduct their own investigation. For example, the famous British writer Pee Dee James says that before she begins to create an exciting story, she always comes up with a solution to the mystery. Therefore, when she is asked how to write a good detective story, she answers that you need to think like a criminal. A novel shouldn't feel like a boring interrogation. Intrigue and tension are what matters.

Plot construction

The detective genre, like any other literary genre, has its own subgenres. Therefore, when answering the question of how to write a detective story, professionals advise first to decide on the choice of method for constructing the storyline.

The classic detective story is presented in a linear form. The reader investigates the crime committed together with the main character. In doing so, he uses the keys to riddles left by the author.
In an inverted detective story, the reader witnesses a crime at the very beginning. And the entire subsequent plot revolves around the process and methods of investigation.
Often detective writers use a combination storyline. When the reader is asked to look at the same crime from different angles. This approach is based on the effect of surprise. After all, the established and harmonious version breaks down in one moment.

Get the reader interested

Bringing the reader up to date and intriguing by presenting a crime is one of the main stages of creating a detective story. It doesn't matter how the facts become known. The reader can witness a crime himself, learn about it from a character’s story, or find himself at the scene of its commission. The main thing is that leads and versions for investigation appear. The description must have a sufficient amount of plausible details - this is one of the factors that should be taken into account when understanding the question of how to write a detective story.

Keep the suspense

The next important task for a novice author will be to retain the reader’s interest. The story should not be too simple when it becomes clear at the beginning that everyone was killed by the “scuba diver.” A far-fetched plot will also quickly get boring and disappoint, since a fairy tale and a detective story are different genres. But even if you plan to create a wildly twisted plot, you should hide some clues in a heap of seemingly unimportant details. This is one of the techniques of the classic English detective story. A clear confirmation of the above can be the statement of the popular Mickey Spillane. When asked how to write a (detective) book, he replied: “No one would read a mystery story to get to the middle. Everyone intends to read it to the end. If it turns out to be a disappointment, you will lose the reader. The first page sells this book, and the last page sells everything that will be written in the future."

Traps

Since detective work relies on reason and deduction, the plot will be more exciting and believable if the information presented in it causes the reader to come to the wrong conclusions. They may even be mistaken and follow a false line of reasoning. This technique is often used by authors who create detective stories about serial killers. This allows you to confuse the reader and create an intriguing turn of events. When everything seems to be clear and there is nothing to be afraid of, it is at such a moment that the main character becomes most vulnerable to an impending series of dangers. An unexpected twist always makes a story more interesting.

Motivation

Detective heroes should have interesting motives. The writer's advice that in a good story every character should want something applies more to the detective genre than to others. Since the hero’s subsequent actions directly depend on motivation. This means they influence the storyline. It is necessary to trace and then write down all the causes and consequences in order to firmly hold the reader in the created situation. The more characters with their own hidden interests, the more confusing, and therefore more exciting, the story becomes. Spy detective stories are mostly full of characters like this. A good example is the detective thriller Mission: Impossible, written by David Koepp and Steven Zaillian.

Create a criminal identity

Since the author knows from the very beginning who, how and why committed the crime, all that remains is to decide whether this character will be one of the main ones.

If you use a common technique, when the attacker is constantly in the reader’s field of view, then it is necessary to work out in detail his personality and appearance. As a rule, the author makes such a hero very likable in order to inspire confidence in the reader and avert suspicion. And in the end - you will be stunned by an unexpected outcome. A striking and clear example is the character Vitaly Egorovich Krechetov from the detective series “Liquidation”.

In the case where the decision is made to make the criminal the least noticeable character, a detailed depiction of personal motives will be required to a greater extent than appearance in order to ultimately bring him to the main stage. These are the types of characters that authors who write detective stories about serial killers create. An example is the sheriff from the detective series “The Mentalist”.

Create the identity of a hero investigating a crime

The character who opposes evil can be anyone. And not necessarily a professional investigator or private investigator. Agatha Christie's attentive old lady Miss Marple and Dan Brown's Professor Langdon cope with their duties no less efficiently. The main task of the leading character is to interest the reader and evoke empathy in him. Therefore, his personality must be alive. Authors of the detective genre also give advice on describing the appearance and behavior of the main character. Some feature will help make him extraordinary, like Fandorin’s gray temples and stutter. But professionals warn novice authors against being overly enthusiastic in describing the inner world of the main character, as well as creating an overly beautiful appearance with figurative comparisons, since such techniques are more typical for romance novels.

Detective Skills

Perhaps a rich imagination, natural flair and logic will help a novice author in creating an interesting detective story, and will also captivate the reader in drawing up an overall picture of the case from small pieces of information provided. However, the story must be believable. Therefore, the luminaries of the genre, when explaining how to write a detective story, focus on studying the intricacies of the work of professional detectives. After all, not everyone has the skills of criminal investigators. This means that for the authenticity of the plot it is necessary to delve into the peculiarities of the profession.

Some use specialist advice. Others spend long hours and days sorting through old court cases. Moreover, to create a high-quality detective story, you will need not only the knowledge of criminologists. At least a general understanding of the psychology of criminal behavior will be necessary. And for authors who decide to spin a plot around a murder, they will also need knowledge in the field of forensic anthropology. You should also not forget about details specific to the time and place of action, since they will require additional knowledge. If the plot of the crime investigation takes place in the 19th century, the environment, historical events, technology and behavior of the characters must correspond to it. The task becomes much more complicated when the detective is also a professional in some other field. For example, a strange mathematician, psychologist or biologist. Accordingly, the author will have to become more skilled in the sciences that make his character special.

Completion

The most important task of the author is also to create an interesting and logical ending. Because no matter how twisted the plot may be, all the mysteries presented in it must be solved. All the questions that have accumulated during the course of the action must be answered. Moreover, through detailed conclusions that will be clear to the reader, since understatement is not welcome in the detective genre. Reflection and construction of various options for completing the story are typical for novels with a philosophical component. And the detective genre is commercial. In addition, the reader will be very interested to know where he was right and where he was wrong.

Professionals draw attention to the danger hidden in mixing genres. When working in this style, it is very important to remember that if the story has a detective beginning, its conclusion should be written in the same genre. You cannot leave the reader disappointed by attributing the crime to mystical forces or an accident. Even if the former occur, in the novel their presence must fit into the plot and the course of the investigation. And the accident itself is not the subject of a detective story. Therefore, if it happened, someone was involved in it. In short, a detective story may have an unexpected ending, but it cannot cause bewilderment and disappointment. It is better if the conclusion is designed for the reader’s deductive abilities, and he solves the riddle a little earlier than the main character.

Definition

Detective - meaning and definition of the term, dictionary of literary terms:: Textologia.ru

DETECTIVE(English - detective; from Lat. - disclosure) - a work of art with a special type of plot associated with the disclosure of mysterious crimes, the confrontation between good and evil, where, as a rule, good defeats evil. The detective story as a genre is characterized by the following main limiting features: 1) the presence of a crime mystery (most often murder); 2) a moral and physical clash on this basis between a professional detective or an amateur detective and a criminal; 3) the investigation process, in which different versions of what happened are checked and worked out, different suspects and the person conducting the investigation are tested; 4) identifying the criminal; 5) restoration of all circumstances of the crime.

This literary genre has a long history in European literature. Its founder is considered to be the American writer Edgar Allan Poe, who in the short story “Murder in the Rue Morgue” (1841) first created the image of an amateur detective endowed with outstanding abilities for logical analysis.

D.N. Ushakov, Large explanatory dictionary of modern Russian language (online version)

DETECTIVE dete, detective, ·husband. (·English detective). Detective, detective police agent.

Etymological dictionary of the Russian language. M.: Russian language from A to Z. Publishing house<ЮНВЕС>. Moscow. 2003.

DETECTIVEEnglish – detective (detective).

Latin – detego (I discover).

The word “detective” was borrowed from English in the second half of the 19th century. It has two meanings. The first is “detective”, the second is “genre of literarywork or film."

Derivative: detective.

Material from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia

Detective(English)detective , from lat.detego - reveal, expose) - predominantly a literary and cinematic genre, the works of which describe the process of investigating a mysterious incident in order to clarify its circumstances and solve the mystery. Typically, such an incident is a crime, and the detective describes its investigation and identification of those responsible; in this case, the conflict is built on the clash of justice with lawlessness, ending in the victory of justice.

Genre features of the detective story

The main feature of a detective story as a genre is the presence in the work of a certain mysterious incident, the circumstances of which are unknown and must be clarified. The most frequently described incident is a crime, although there are detective stories in which events that are not criminal are investigated (for example, in The Notes of Sherlock Holmes, which certainly belongs to the detective genre, in five stories out of eighteen there are no crimes).

An essential feature of the detective story is that the actual circumstances of the incident are not communicated to the reader, at least in its entirety, until the investigation is completed. Instead, the reader is led by the author through the investigative process, given the opportunity at each stage to construct their own versions and evaluate known facts. If the work initially describes all the details of the incident, or the incident does not contain anything unusual or mysterious, then it should no longer be classified as a pure detective story, but rather among related genres.

An important property of a classic detective story is the completeness of facts. The solution to the mystery cannot be based on information that was not provided to the reader during the description of the investigation. By the time the investigation is completed, the reader should have enough information to use it to find a solution on their own. Only certain minor details may be hidden that do not affect the possibility of revealing the secret. At the end of the investigation, all mysteries must be solved, all questions must be answered.

Several Yet signs of a classic detective collectively were named by N. N. Volsky hyperdeterminism of the detective's world(“the world of a detective is much more orderly than the life around us”):

Ordinary surroundings. The conditions in which the events of the detective story take place are generally common and well known to the reader (in any case, the reader himself believes that he is confident in them). Thanks to this, it is initially obvious to the reader which of what is described is ordinary and which is strange, beyond the scope.
Stereotypical behavior of characters. The characters are largely devoid of originality, their psychology and behavioral patterns are quite transparent, predictable, and if they have any distinctive features, they become known to the reader. The motives for the actions (including the motives for the crime) of the characters are also stereotypical.
The existence of a priori rules for constructing a plot, which do not always correspond to real life. So, for example, in a classic detective story, the narrator and detective, in principle, cannot turn out to be criminals.

This set of features narrows the field of possible logical constructions based on known facts, making it easier for the reader to analyze them. However, not all detective subgenres follow these rules exactly.

Another limitation is noted, which is almost always followed by a classic detective story - the inadmissibility of random errors and undetectable coincidences. For example, in real life, a witness can tell the truth, he can lie, he can be mistaken or misled, but he can also simply make an unmotivated mistake (accidentally mix up dates, amounts, names). In a detective story, the last possibility is excluded - the witness is either accurate, or lying, or his mistake has a logical justification.

Eremey Parnov points out the following features of the classic detective genre:

the reader of the detective story is invited to participate in a kind of game - solving the mystery or the name of the criminal;
« gothic exotica» -

From the infernal monkey, the founder of both genres (fantasy and detective), Edgar Allan Poe, from the blue carbuncle and tropical viper of Conan Doyle, from the Indian moonstone of Wilkie Collins and ending with the secluded castles of Agatha Christie and the corpse in the boat of Charles Snow, the Western detective story is incorrigibly exotic. In addition, he is pathologically committed to the Gothic novel (the medieval castle is a favorite stage on which bloody dramas are played out).

sketchiness -

Unlike science fiction, detective fiction is often written just for the sake of the detective story, that is, the detective! In other words, the criminal tailors his bloody activities to the detective, just as an experienced playwright tailors roles to specific actors.

Typical characters

Detective - directly involved in the investigation. A variety of people can act as detectives: law enforcement officers, private detectives, relatives, friends, acquaintances of the victims, and sometimes completely random people. The detective cannot turn out to be a criminal. The figure of the detective is central to the detective story.
A professional detective is a law enforcement officer. He may be a very high-level expert, or he may be an ordinary police officer, of which there are many. In the second case, in difficult situations, he sometimes seeks advice from a consultant.
A private detective - crime investigation is his main job, but he does not serve in the police, although he may be a retired police officer. As a rule, he is extremely highly qualified, active and energetic. Most often, a private detective becomes a central figure, and to emphasize his qualities, professional detectives can be brought into action, who constantly make mistakes, succumb to the provocations of the criminal, get on the wrong trail and suspect the innocent. The contrast “a lonely hero against a bureaucratic organization and its officials” is used, in which the sympathies of the author and the reader are on the side of the hero.
An amateur detective is the same as a private detective, with the only difference being that investigating crimes for him is not a profession, but a hobby that he turns to only from time to time. A separate subtype of amateur detective is a random person who has never engaged in such activities, but is forced to conduct an investigation due to urgent necessity, for example, to save an unjustly accused loved one or to divert suspicion from himself. The amateur detective brings the investigation closer to the reader, allowing him to create the impression that “I could figure this out too.” One of the conventions of detective series with amateur detectives (like Miss Marple) is that in real life a person, unless he is professionally involved in crime investigation, is unlikely to encounter such a number of crimes and mysterious incidents.
A criminal commits a crime, covers his tracks, tries to counteract the investigation. In a classic detective story, the figure of the criminal is clearly identified only at the end of the investigation; up to this point, the criminal can be a witness, suspect or victim. Sometimes the actions of the criminal are described during the course of the main action, but in such a way as not to reveal his identity and not to provide the reader with information that could not be obtained during the investigation from other sources.
The victim is the one against whom the crime is directed or the one who suffered as a result of a mysterious incident. One of the standard options for a detective story is that the victim himself turns out to be a criminal.
A witness is a person who has any information about the subject of the investigation. The criminal is often first shown in the description of the investigation as one of the witnesses.
A detective's companion is a person who is constantly in contact with the detective, participating in the investigation, but does not have the abilities and knowledge of the detective. He can provide technical assistance in the investigation, but his main task is to more clearly show the outstanding abilities of the detective against the background of the average level ordinary person. In addition, the companion is needed to ask the detective questions and listen to his explanations, giving the reader the opportunity to follow the detective's train of thought and draw attention to certain points that the reader himself might miss. Classic examples of such companions are Dr. Watson from Conan Doyle and Arthur Hastings from Agatha Christie.
A consultant is a person who has strong abilities to conduct an investigation, but is not directly involved in it. In detective stories, where a separate figure of the consultant stands out, she may be the main one (for example, journalist Ksenofontov in detective stories

Features of the genre

Several more signs of a classic detective story were collectively named by N. N. Volsky hyperdeterminism of the detective's world(“the world of a detective is much more orderly than the life around us”):

Ordinary surroundings. The conditions in which the events of the detective story take place are generally common and well known to the reader (in any case, the reader himself believes that he is confident in them). Thanks to this, it is initially obvious to the reader which of what is described is ordinary and which is strange, beyond the scope.
Stereotypical behavior of characters. The characters are largely devoid of originality, their psychology and behavioral patterns are quite transparent, predictable, and if they have any distinctive features, they become known to the reader. The motives for the actions (including the motives for the crime) of the characters are also stereotypical.
The existence of a priori rules for constructing a plot, which do not always correspond to real life. So, for example, in a classic detective story, the narrator and detective, in principle, cannot turn out to be criminals.

Eremey Parnov points out the following features of the classic detective genre:

Typical characters

Detective - directly involved in the investigation. A variety of people can act as detectives: law enforcement officers, private detectives, relatives, friends, acquaintances of the victims, and sometimes completely random people. The detective cannot turn out to be a criminal. The figure of the detective is central to the detective story.
- A professional detective is a law enforcement officer. He may be a very high-level expert, or he may be an ordinary police officer, of which there are many. In the second case, in difficult situations, he sometimes seeks advice from a consultant (see below).
- A private detective - crime investigation is his main job, but he does not serve in the police, although he may be a retired police officer. As a rule, he is extremely highly qualified, active and energetic. Most often, a private detective becomes a central figure, and to emphasize his qualities, professional detectives can be brought into action, who constantly make mistakes, succumb to the provocations of the criminal, get on the wrong trail and suspect the innocent. The contrast “a lonely hero against a bureaucratic organization and its officials” is used, in which the sympathies of the author and the reader are on the side of the hero.
- An amateur detective is the same as a private detective, with the only difference being that investigating crimes for him is not a profession, but a hobby that he turns to only from time to time. A separate subspecies of the amateur detective is a random person who has never engaged in such activities, but is forced to conduct an investigation due to urgent necessity, for example, to save an unjustly accused loved one or to divert suspicion from himself (these are the main characters of all Dick Francis novels). The amateur detective brings the investigation closer to the reader, allowing him to create the impression that “I could figure this out too.” One of the conventions of detective series with amateur detectives (like Miss Marple) is that in real life a person, unless he is professionally involved in crime investigation, is unlikely to encounter such a number of crimes and mysterious incidents.
A criminal commits a crime, covers his tracks, tries to counteract the investigation. In a classic detective story, the figure of the criminal is clearly identified only at the end of the investigation; up to this point, the criminal can be a witness, suspect or victim. Sometimes the actions of the criminal are described during the course of the main action, but in such a way as not to reveal his identity and not to provide the reader with information that could not be obtained during the investigation from other sources.
The victim is the one against whom the crime is directed or the one who suffered as a result of a mysterious incident. One of the standard options for a detective story is that the victim himself turns out to be a criminal.
A witness is a person who has any information about the subject of the investigation. The criminal is often first shown in the description of the investigation as one of the witnesses.
A detective's companion is a person who is constantly in contact with the detective, participating in the investigation, but does not have the abilities and knowledge of the detective. He can provide technical assistance in the investigation, but his main task is to more clearly show the detective’s outstanding abilities against the background of the average level of an ordinary person. In addition, the companion is needed to ask the detective questions and listen to his explanations, giving the reader the opportunity to follow the detective's train of thought and draw attention to certain points that the reader himself might miss. Classic examples of such companions are Dr. Watson from Conan Doyle and Arthur Hastings from Agatha Christie.
A consultant is a person who has strong abilities to conduct an investigation, but is not directly involved in it. In detective stories, where a separate figure of the consultant stands out, she may be the main one (for example, the journalist Ksenofontov in the detective stories of Viktor Pronin), or she may simply turn out to be an occasional adviser (for example, the teacher of the detective to whom he turns for help).
Assistant - does not conduct the investigation himself, but provides the detective and/or consultant with information that he obtains himself. For example, a forensic expert.
Suspect - as the investigation progresses, an assumption arises that it was he who committed the crime. Authors deal with suspects in different ways; one of the frequently practiced principles is “none of those immediately suspected is a real criminal,” that is, everyone who comes under suspicion turns out to be innocent, and the real criminal turns out to be the one who was not suspected of anything. . However, not all authors follow this principle. In Agatha Christie's detective stories, for example, Miss Marple repeatedly says that "in life, it is usually the one who is suspected first that is the criminal."

Detective story

The first works of the detective genre are usually considered to be the stories of Edgar Poe, written in the 1840s, but elements of the detective story have been used by many authors before. For example, in the novel “The Adventures of Caleb Williams” by William Godwin (-), one of the central characters is an amateur detective. The “Notes” of E. Vidocq, published in. also had a great influence on the development of detective literature. However, it was Edgar Poe who created, according to Eremey Parnov, the first Great Detective - the amateur detective Dupin from the story “Murder in the Rue Morgue.” Dupin subsequently gave birth to Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown (Chesterton), Lecoq (Gaborio) and Mr. Cuff (Wilkie Collins). It was Edgar Poe who introduced into the detective story the idea of rivalry in solving a crime between a private detective and the official police, in which the private detective, as a rule, gains the upper hand.

The detective genre becomes popular in England after the release of W. Collins’s novels “The Woman in White” () and “The Moonstone” (). In the novels “The Hand of Wilder” () and “Checkmate” () by the Irish writer Ch. Le Fanu, a detective story is combined with a gothic novel. The golden age of the detective story in England is considered to be the 30s - 70s. 20th century. It was at this time that classic detective novels by Agatha Christie, F. Beading and other authors were published who influenced the development of the genre as a whole.

The founder of the French detective story is E. Gaboriau, the author of a series of novels about the detective Lecoq. Stevenson imitated Gaboriau in his detective stories (especially The Rajah's Diamond).

Twenty rules for writing detective stories

In 1928, the English writer Willard Hattington, better known by his pseudonym Stephen Van Dyne, published his set of literary rules, calling it “20 Rules for Writing Mysteries”:

1. It is necessary to provide the reader with equal opportunities to unravel the mysteries as the detective, for which purpose it is necessary to clearly and accurately report all incriminating traces.

2. In relation to the reader, only such tricks and deception are allowed that a criminal can use in relation to the detective.

3. Love is forbidden. The story should be a game of tag, not between lovers, but between a detective and a criminal.

4. Neither a detective nor another person professionally involved in the investigation can be a criminal.

5. Logical conclusions must lead to exposure. Accidental or unfounded confessions are not permitted.

6. A detective story cannot lack a detective who methodically searches for incriminating evidence, as a result of which he comes to a solution to the riddle.

7. The obligatory crime in a detective story is murder.

8. In solving a given mystery, all supernatural forces and circumstances must be excluded.

9. There can only be one detective in the story - the reader cannot compete with three or four members of the relay team at once.

10. The criminal should be one of the most or less significant characters well known to the reader.

11. An unacceptably cheap solution in which one of the servants is the criminal.

12. Although the criminal may have an accomplice, the story should mainly be about the capture of one person.

13. Secret or criminal communities have no place in a detective story.

14. The method of committing the murder and the investigation technique must be reasonable and scientifically sound.

15. For a savvy reader, the solution should be obvious.

16. In a detective story there is no place for literary nonsense, descriptions of painstakingly developed characters, or colorization of the situation using the means of fiction.

17. Under no circumstances can a criminal be a professional villain.

19. The motive for the crime is always of a private nature; it cannot be an espionage action, seasoned with any international intrigues or motives of the secret services.

The decade that followed the promulgation of the terms of the Van Dyne Convention finally discredited the detective story as a genre of literature. It is no coincidence that we know the detectives of previous eras well and every time we turn to their experience. But we can hardly, without looking into reference books, name the names of figures from the “Twenty Rules” clan. The modern Western detective story developed in spite of Van Dyne, refuting point after point, overcoming self-inflicted limitations. One paragraph (a detective should not be a criminal!), however, survived, although it was violated several times by the cinema. This is a reasonable prohibition, because it protects the very specificity of the detective story, its core line... In a modern novel we will not see even a trace of the “Rules”...

The Ten Commandments of a Detective Novel by Ronald Knox

Ronald Knox, one of the founders of the Detective Club, also proposed his own rules for writing detective stories:

I. The criminal should be someone mentioned at the beginning of the novel, but it should not be a person whose train of thought the reader was allowed to follow.

II. The action of supernatural or otherworldly forces is excluded as a matter of course.

III. The use of more than one secret room or secret passage is not permitted.

IV. It is unacceptable to use hitherto unknown poisons, as well as devices that require a long scientific explanation at the end of the book.

V. The work must not include a Chinese person.

VI. A detective should never be helped by a lucky chance; he should also not be guided by unconscious but correct intuition.

VII. A detective should not turn out to be a criminal himself.

VIII. Having come across one or another clue, the detective is obliged to immediately present it to the reader for study.

IX. The detective's stupid friend, Watson in one guise or another, should not hide any of the considerations that come to his mind; in his mental abilities he should be slightly inferior - but only slightly - to the average reader.

X. Indistinguishable twin brothers and doubles in general cannot appear in a novel unless the reader is properly prepared for this.

Some types of detectives

Closed detective

A subgenre that usually most closely follows the canons of the classic detective story. The plot is based on the investigation of a crime committed in a secluded place, where there is a strictly limited set of characters. There could be no one else in this place, so the crime could only have been committed by someone present. The investigation is conducted by someone at the scene of the crime with the help of other heroes.

This type of detective story is different in that the plot, in principle, eliminates the need to search for an unknown criminal. There are suspects, and the detective’s job is to obtain as much information as possible about the participants in the events, on the basis of which it will be possible to identify the criminal. Additional psychological tension is created by the fact that the criminal must be one of the well-known, nearby people, none of whom, usually, resemble the criminal. Sometimes in a closed-type detective story a whole series of crimes occurs (usually murders), as a result of which the number of suspects is constantly reduced. Examples of closed-type detectives:

Cyril Hare, A Very English Murder.
Agatha Christie, Ten Little Indians, Murder on the Orient Express.
Boris Akunin, “Leviathan” (signed by the author as a “hermetic detective”).
Leonid Slovin, "An additional one arrives on the second path."

Psychological detective

This type of detective story may deviate somewhat from the classical canons in terms of the requirement for stereotypical behavior and the typical psychology of the heroes. Usually a crime committed for personal reasons (envy, revenge) is investigated, and the main element of the investigation is the study of the personal characteristics of the suspects, their attachments, pain points, beliefs, prejudices, and clarification of the past. There is a school of French psychological detective.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor, “Crime and Punishment”.
Boileau - Narcejac, “She-Wolf”, “The One Who Wasn’t”, “Sea Gate”, “Outlining the Heart”.
Japrisot, Sébastien, "A lady with glasses and a gun in a car."
Calef, Noel, "Elevator to the Scaffold".
Ball, John, "On a Stifling Night in Carolina."

Historical detective

Main article: Historical detective

A historical work with detective intrigue. The action takes place in the past, or an ancient crime is being investigated in the present.

Boileau-Narcejac "In the Enchanted Forest"
Queen, Ellery "The Unknown Manuscript of Dr. Watson"
Boris Akunin, Literary project “The Adventures of Erast Fandorin”
Leonid Yuzefovich, Literary project about detective Putilin
Alexander Bushkov, The Adventures of Alexey Bestuzhev

Ironic detective

The detective investigation is described from a humorous point of view. Often works written in this vein parody and ridicule the cliches of a detective novel.

Varshavsky, Ilya, “The robbery will happen at midnight”
Kaganov, Leonid, "Major Bogdamir saves money"
Kozachinsky, Alexander, "Green Van"
Westlake, Donald, "The Cursed Emerald" ( hot pebble), "The Bank That Gurgled"
Ioanna Khmelevskaya (most works)
Daria Dontsova (all works)
Yene Reite (all works)

Fantastic detective

Works at the intersection of science fiction and detective fiction. The action can take place in the future, an alternative present or past, or in a completely fictional world.

Lem, Stanislav, "Investigation", "Inquiry"
Russell, Eric Frank, "The Routine Job", "The Wasp"
Holm van Zaychik, series “There are no bad people”
Kir Bulychev, cycle “Intergalactic Police” (“Intergpol”)
Isaac Asimov, series Lucky Starr - space ranger, Detective Elijah Bailey and robot Daniel Olivo
John Brunner, Chess City Squares The Squares of the City, ; Russian translation - )
Strugatsky Brothers, Hotel "At the Dead Mountaineer"
Cook, Glenn, a series of fantasy detective stories about detective Garrett
Randall Garrett, a fantasy detective series about detective Lord Darcy
Boris Akunin "Children's book"
Kluger, Daniel, fantasy detective series “Magical Matters”
Harry Tortledove - The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

Political detective

One of the genres quite far from the classic detective story. The main intrigue is built around political events and rivalries between various political or business actors and forces. It also often happens that the main character himself is far from politics, however, while investigating a case, he comes across an obstacle to the investigation from the “powers that be” or uncovers some kind of conspiracy. A distinctive feature of a political detective story is (although not necessarily) the possible absence of completely positive characters, except for the main one. This genre is rarely found in pure form, however, may be an integral part of the work.

Levashov, Victor, “Conspiracy of Patriots”
Adam Hall, "Berlin Memorandum" (Quiller Memorandum)
Fletcher Niebel, "Seven Days in May"
Nikolai Svechin, "The Tsar Hunt", "Demon of the Underworld"

Spy detective

Based on the narrative of the activities of intelligence officers, spies and saboteurs both in wartime and in peacetime on the “invisible front”. In terms of stylistic boundaries, it is very close to political and conspiracy detective stories, and is often combined in the same work. The main difference between a spy detective and a political detective is that in a political detective the most important position is occupied by the political basis of the case under investigation and antagonistic conflicts, while in a spy detective the attention is focused on intelligence work (surveillance, sabotage, etc.). A conspiracy detective can be considered a variety of both spy and political detective

Agatha Christie, "Cat Among the Pigeons"
John Boynton Priestley, "Mist over Gretley" (1942)
James Grady, "Six Days of the Condor"
Dmitry Medvedev, “It was near Rovno”
Nikolay Daleky, “The Practice of Sergei Rubtsov”

Police detective

Describes the work of a team of professionals. In works of this type, the main detective character is either absent or only marginally higher in importance compared to the rest of the team. In terms of the authenticity of the plot, it is closest to reality and, accordingly, deviates to the greatest extent from the canons of the pure detective genre (the professional routine is described in detail with details not directly related to the plot, there is a significant proportion of accidents and coincidences, the presence of informants in criminal and near-criminal environment, the offender often remains unnamed and unknown until the very end of the investigation, and can also evade punishment due to negligence of the investigation or lack of direct evidence).

Schöwall and Vale, a series of novels about members of the homicide department led by Martin Beck
Yulian Semyonov, “Petrovka, 38”, “Ogareva, 6”
Kivinov, Andrey Vladimirovich, “Nightmare on Stachek Street” and subsequent works.

"Cool" detective

Most often it is described as a lone detective, a man of about thirty-five to forty years old, or a small detective agency. In works of this type, the main character confronts almost the entire world: organized crime, corrupt politicians, corrupt police. The main features are the maximum action of the hero, his “coolness”, the vile world around him and the honesty of the main character. The best examples of the genre are psychological and contain signs of serious literature - for example, the works of Raymond Chandler.

Dashiell Hammett, a series about the Continental Detective Agency, “Bloody Harvest” - is considered the founder of the genre.
Raymond Chandler, "Farewell, Sweetheart", "High Window", "The Woman in the Lake".
Ross Macdonald - many works.
Chester Haymes, Run, Negro, Run.

Crime detective

Events are described from the point of view of the criminal, and not from the people looking for him. Classic example: Jim Thompson's "The Killer in Me"

James Hadley Chase - "The Whole World in Your Pocket"

Detective in the cinema

The detective story focuses on the actions of a detective, private investigator, or novice sleuth as he explores the mysterious circumstances of a crime through clues, investigation, and skillful deductions. A successful detective film often hides the identity of the criminal until the end of the story, and then adds an element of surprise in the process of arresting the suspect. However, the opposite is also possible. Thus, the hallmark of the Columbo series was the demonstration of events from the point of view of both the detective and the criminal.

Suspense is often retained as an important part of the plot. This can be done through the use of a soundtrack, camera angles, shadow play and unexpected plot twists. Alfred Hitchcock used all of these techniques, occasionally allowing the viewer to enter a state of foreboding danger and then choosing the most opportune moment for dramatic effect.

Detective stories have proven to be a good choice for a movie script. The detective is often a strong character with strong leadership qualities, and the plot may include elements of drama, suspense, personal growth, ambiguous and unexpected character traits.

At least until the 1980s, women in crime fiction often played a dual role, having a relationship with the detective and often filling the role of "woman in danger." The women in those films are often resourceful individuals, being self-confident, determined and often two-faced. They can serve as an element of suspense as helpless victims.

Aphorisms about a detective

Thanks to criminals, world culture has been enriched by the detective genre.
If you don’t know what to write, write: “A man walked in with a revolver in his hand.”(Raymond Chandler)
The slower the investigator, the longer the detective story. (

GRADUATE WORK

Features of the English-language detective genre in literature (based on the material of English and American detectives)

annotation

The thesis examines the features of the English-language detective genre.

The work consists of an introduction, two chapters, a conclusion and a list of sources.

The first chapter of the thesis is devoted to the history of the development of the detective genre, as well as the work of researchers in this area.

The second chapter presents the features of the detective genre in English-language literature, analysis of works and comparison of English and American detectives.

The work was printed on 69 sheets using 59 sources, contains 1 table.

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………6

1 The detective genre in English literature…………………………………..8

1.1 Formation of the detective genre in literature……………………………...9

1.2 History of the detective genre……………………………………………...10

1.2.1 Detective works before the twentieth century (1838 - 1889)………………10

1.2.2 Detective works of 1890 - 1901……………………………...13

1.2.3 Detective works of the twentieth century (1902 - 1929)……………......15

1.3 Researchers of the detective genre………………………………………………………...18

2 Features of the detective genre……………………………………………..23

2.1 Features of English-language detective works………………….25

2.1.1 Realization of the image of a detective pair “detective - his companion”……….28

2.1.2 Intrigue and two-story construction of works…………………36

2.1.3 Detective and fairy tale………………………………………………………43

2.1.4 Elements of reality in detective works…………………….46

2.2 Children's detective………………………………………………………...51

2.3 Ironic detective story as a special type of genre……………………………....54

2.4 Implementation of the rules of the genre in various types of detective stories…………………...59

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………...63

List of references………………………………………………………….65

Introduction

Mysteries and riddles have always attracted humanity and the English-speaking society in particular. Ever since Edgar Allan Poe wrote the first detective story in English, interest in this literary genre has not waned.

The relevance of this study lies in an attempt to highlight something that researchers of the detective genre have not touched upon previously, namely: a comparison of the English and American detective genres.

The object of research is the detective genre in literature.

Subject - genre features of the English-language detective story.

The purpose of this thesis is to highlight the features of the detective genre in English-language literature.

Objectives: compare English and American detective stories, trace the genesis of the genre in English-language literature, and highlight genre features.

The research material was the works of English-language authors: Edgar Allan Poe, Agatha Christie, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Dorothy Sayers, Arthur Conan Doyle, Rex Stout, Dashiell Hammett, Earl Gardner.

In this work, we relied on the research of such authors as N. N. Volsky, J. K. Markulan, A. Z. Vulis, A. G. Adamov, G. A. Andzhaparidze, T. Keszthelyi, as well as on encyclopedias and dictionaries.

Structure of the work: the thesis consists of an introduction, two chapters and a conclusion, as well as a bibliography.

The introduction outlines the purpose and objectives of the work, its relevance and novelty, as well as the material and research methods.

The first chapter, “The Detective Genre in English-Language Literature,” examines in detail the formation and history of the detective genre, and the directions of work of researchers in this direction.

The second chapter, “Features of the detective genre,” is devoted to the study of the works of English-language authors in order to identify the features of the genre in them.

The conclusion contains conclusions about the work done.

The practical significance of the study lies in the possibility of using its results at seminars on foreign literature at school and university.

The methodological basis of the research in this work was the organizational methods of scientific knowledge and data processing. The study used such general scientific methods as literature analysis, comparison and classification of data.

The novelty of the work lies in the simultaneous consideration and analysis of detective works by English and American authors.

1 The detective genre in English literature

Detective - the very name of the genre (translated from English detective - “detective”) says a lot. Firstly, it coincides with the profession of its main character - a detective, that is, a detective, the one who conducts the investigation. Secondly, this profession reminds us that the detective genre is one of the variants of widespread literature about crimes. Thirdly, it also implies a method of plot construction, in which the mystery of the crime remains unsolved until the end, keeping the reader in suspense.

The mysterious has always attracted people, but a professional investigation of a crime could not become a plot in literature before it arose as a phenomenon of social reality. In the 18th-19th centuries, in the most developed bourgeois countries, a police apparatus began to form, including for the suppression and detection of crimes. One of the first detective offices was created with the participation of the great English novelist Henry Fielding, and almost a century later Charles Dickens interestedly followed the first steps of the subsequently famous Scotland Yard. For a writer, a crime is a sign of social ill-being, and the process of revealing it allows one to lift the veil of secrecy over the very mechanism of social connections. Thus, an element of detective intrigue appears in the works and the figure of the detective is introduced, initially as an episodic person in E. J. Bulwer-Lytton, C. Dickens, Honore de Balzac, F. M. Dostoevsky. The literary debut of a detective does not yet give rise to talk about the birth of the detective genre. The crime and its disclosure is just one of the plot motifs, which, even becoming the leading one in F. M. Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” and in Charles Dickens’ “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” (unfinished), does not subordinate interest to the only question - who killed? It is more important to find out what kind of person becomes a criminal and what pushes him to do so.

1.1 Formation of the detective genre in literature

Edgar Allan Poe is considered the founder of the detective genre, who shifted the main emphasis from the personality of the criminal to the personality of the one who is investigating the crime. This is how the first famous detective in literature, Dupin, appears, whose extraordinary analytical abilities give the author the opportunity to pose a philosophical question about the unrealized powers of the human mind. The path to detective fiction as an independent genre lies through highlighting the very intrigue of the investigation. It ensures the success of the work, and its dignity is determined by the degree of ingenuity of the solution, the effectiveness of solving the mystery of the crime. Perhaps the first sign of the birth of the detective is in William Wilkie Collins's definition of his novels (The Woman in White and The Moonstone) as sensational. The detective story as a genre will take its classic form in the stories and stories of Arthur Conan Doyle, under whose pen it becomes “a purely analytical exercise,” which, however, “as such can be a perfect work of art within its completely conventional limits.” These words, spoken by another well-known English writer in this genre, Dorothy Sayers, may mean that the detective author is aware of the limitations of his genre form and is not going to compete with Charles Dickens or F. M. Dostoevsky. His goal is more modest - to interest, but on the way to this goal he can achieve a certain perfection. The key to success is the complexity of an unexpectedly solvable logical problem, as well as the originality of the personality of the person who solves it. That is why the names of the most famous heroes, such as Sherlock Holmes from Conan Doyle, Father Brown from Gilbert Chesterton, Maigret from Georges Simenon, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple from Agatha Christie, are not inferior in fame to the names of their creators. If we are accustomed to judging fiction by the richness and skill of words, then in a detective story this criterion disappears: “Style in a detective story is as inappropriate as in a crossword puzzle.” This is how Stephen Van Dyne harshly formulates one of the rules of the genre. Among authors, many share this belief, although not so easily: after all, the literary merit of the genre is called into question.

1.2 History of the detective genre

1.2.1 Detective works beforeXX century. (1838 - 1889)

The first fully mature detective story is considered to be the story published in Philadelphia in 1841, in the April issue of Graham's Magazine - Edgar Allan Poe's story "Murder in the Rue Morgue." This point of view has been repeatedly challenged. “Murder in the Rue Morgue” is not the first work in which there are all the components of a detective story: a detective plus a confidant (a pair that later became known as “Holmes-Watson”), a crime and a solution to the problem by inference. But this is the first work about “an impossible crime in a locked room.” The problem facing the detective is that after a murder, there is no obvious way to leave the room in which the crime was committed. All doors and windows are securely locked from the inside and door keys are in the door locks. Even the chimney is blocked by the victim's body. And, despite the fact that the crime seemed impossible, Dupin finds a solution to the problem. However, the concept of “the secret of a locked room” was not introduced into the detective story by Edgar Allan Poe. It was first used by the famous Irish writer Joseph Sheridan le Fanu. In November 1838, the story "A Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess" was published in the Dublin University Magazine. This story, which was republished in a collection called The Purcell Papers, begins with a previously unsolved murder in a locked room. The following lines contain a message that the heroine of the story almost suffered the same fate. But the heroine survived and managed to explain the secret. The solution is completely different from E.A. Poe's idea. Recognizing the novelty of this plot device, Le Fanu used it with other characters in the story "The Murdered Cousin" ("Murder of the Cousin"), as well as in his fifth novel "Uncle Silas" ("Uncle Silas").

Since then, the “locked room” theme has been used by many writers, and at least three of them, publishing between 1852 and 1868, were authors of fairly high caliber. The February issue of Charles Dickens' Household Words magazine published Wilkie Collins's story "A Terribly Strange Bed", in which the hero escapes a terrible death in a locked room and points out the "devil in the machine" to the gendarmerie. who almost managed to kill him. The story was published in the 1856 anthology After Dark. Subsequently, it was reprinted many times and was used by at least two plagiarists. The first, "An Odd Tale" by H. Barton Baker, appeared in the Christmas Annual magazine in 1883, and the story was very popular in the days of publication. The second was the story “The Inn of the Two Witches,” written by Joseph Conrad.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich included a detective hero in the story in 1862. Out of His Head is an episodic novel introducing perhaps the first truly eccentric detective, Paul Lynde. It was the last English-language novel of the period to feature a "locked room" theme. There was a lull. But the “impossible crime” genre took off and forever took its place in detective literature.

However, in Europe the picture was different. A book entitled Nena Sahib was published in Germany in 1858. The author was a German by nationality, Hermann O. F. Goedsche, who wrote under the pseudonym Sir John Retcliffe. This long and not always interesting story is full of strong criticism of British colonial policy in India, and there is very little detective content. But nevertheless, the novel contains a detailed description of a murder in a locked room with a solution so simple and attractive that the real criminal used it in 1881. (But this did not help him, and he fell into the hands of the police).

France has always given the world writers with a love and a knack for stories of impossible crimes. In those early days of the detective story, two French authors had the opportunity to set the bar. The first was Eugene Chavette with his novel La Chambre du Crime (1875). The long, wordy narrative, of typical Victorian complexity, has not been translated into any other language in the world. Later, in 1888, it was published short story famous writer Victorien Sardoy's "The Black Pearl". In it, the detective is confronted with a theft from a locked room instead of the almost obligatory murder of a detective story. The story is told in good language from the perspective of detective Cornelius Pump. The proposed solution, although very ingenious, is hardly realistic. The story can be found in The Romances (Brentanos, 1888) and The Skin of a Lion (Vizetelly, 1889).

1.2.2 Detective works of 1890 - 1901

Until the 1990s, art magazines were filled with many "sensational" stories of brutal deaths in traps, supernatural poisonings and diabolical machines. But in the last decade of the 19th century, the detective component of the “locked room mystery” again came to the fore. The initiative was started by Israel Zangwill. He came up with a completely new explanation for the mysterious crime in the locked room. It was a book written in 1891, The Big Bow Mystery. The events in this work take place in the east part of London, which the author knew well. The word "Bow" refers to the name of an area of the British capital and is in no way associated with archery. The second was the story “The Speckled Band” by Arthur Conan Doyle, published in 1892, in which the great detective is faced with the problem of a “locked room” and the sinister Doctor Grimsby Roylot. Stories about Sherlock Holmes were very popular, they were published by The Strand Magazine.

Impossible crimes have repeatedly attracted the attention of the writer. An example is the unpublished story of the disappearance of a certain Mr. Phillimore. In the future, the maestro of the “locked room” John Dixon Carr, in collaboration with Arthur Conan Doyle’s son, Adrian Conan Doyle, will write several stories - a continuation of the adventures of the great detective.

In August 1898, The Strand Magazine published The Story of the Lost Special. The mystery was that a train went missing on a short section of track between two stations. Moreover, the regular train following the “special” arrived at the destination station strictly on schedule, and none of its passengers noticed anything unusual along the way. "This is madness. Can a train disappear in broad daylight in clear weather in England? A steam locomotive, a tender, two passenger cars, five people - and all this disappeared on a straight railway line." It is interesting that in this story the detective is not named. However, it quotes a letter from a certain “dilettante logician” who believed that if you discard various impossible options, then the one that remains, even though it is incredible, is the true one. Subsequently, the vanishing train idea was used by Leslie Lynwood, Melville Davisson Post, August Derleth and Ellery Queen. Moreover, the latter went further; in his story “The Divine Lamp” an entire house disappears.

Of the female writers, only Ada Cambridge can be distinguished, who, in the story “At Midnight”, written in 1897, describes the terrible story of the disappearance of a person.

We can say that two novels complete the era, each of which is unusual in its own way. The first is “The Justification of Andrew Lebrun” (1894), which was written by Frank Barrett, combining mystery, drama, investigation and even scientific facts. This is one of the earliest examples of disappearances from a locked and guarded room - a laboratory. The victim is the beautiful daughter of a strange scientist who worked there. The second is the impossible crime described by Louis Zangwill in the work “A Nineteenth Miracle” (1897) and is also very unusual. A man is washed away in front of witnesses from aboard a canal ferry and almost simultaneously his body falls through the upper window of a certain studio in London.

1.2.3 Detective works of the twentieth century. (1902 - 1929)

The Strand Magazine published a story in 1903 that opened a new stage in detective literature about impossible crimes. Samuel Hopkins Adams created the effect of a “locked room” in an open space, without any connection to doors and windows closed from the inside. In fact, the setting of the story “The Flying Death” is a beach. The detective is not faced with the problem of how the criminal left the locked room. She simply isn't there. The effect of “impossibility” is achieved by the fact that there is no way to leave the crime scene without leaving footprints in the sand. But that's exactly what happened. Soon other authors picked up this idea. In 1906, two works were published, which, by a strange coincidence, were even called almost identically, “The Flying Man” and “The Man Who Could Fly.” Their authors were Alfred Henry Lewis with “The Man Who Flew” (U.S.) and Oswald Crawfurd “The Flying Man”. Both works deal with a murder and the subsequent disappearance of the criminal from the crime scene. In both cases, the action takes place in winter on a snowy area, and the killer leaves no traces in the snow.

Another main character of this period was an American journalist who revered the work of Le Fanu and therefore took the French name Jacques Futrelle (Jacques Futrelle). He is one of the most prolific writers of impossible crime stories. The reader meets his main character, Professor August Van Dusen, whom the author calls Thinking Machine, in the story “The Problem of Cell 13.” The story was often included in various anthologies of the best detectives. "The Thinking Machine" was able to explain by what trick a man was able to escape from a guarded prison cell. The author's brilliant imagination was expressed in many other stories, where he described more and more new types of impossible crimes or made changes to previously invented methods. In " In “The Case of the Mysterious Weapon” he sucked all the air out of the bodies of the victims, in “The House That Was” roads and houses disappeared, in “The Kidnapping of the Child of Millionaire Blais” ("Kidnapped Baby Blace, Millionaire"), the tracks in the snow ended suddenly - as if the unfortunate child had disappeared into thin air. In one of his best stories, "The Phantom Motor", Futrell described the disappearance of a car from a protected section of the road with one the only exit.

In 1911, the collection “Innocence of Father Brown” by G. K. Chesterton, already known at that time, was published. The adventures of Father Brown have been collected into five collections. The detective priest often encounters impossible crimes. The next author to contribute to the development of the impossible crime literature was Carolyn Wells. Her first detective novel with private detective Fleming Stone, entitled “The Clue,” was published in 1909. She wrote about a hundred works and about twenty of them were about impossible crimes. Never before has a woman writer paid so much attention to this genre.

First World War ended in 1918, and in the same year a new literary detective star was born in the United States. In the novel by Melville Davisson Post, Uncle Abner was introduced, a kind of rural detective of the American outback. Uncle Abner is quite rightly regarded as one of the members of the Big Four, along with A. Dupin, S. Holmes and Father Brown.

In 1926, the first book of the “chief detective novelist” Willard Huntington Wright, “The Benson Murder Case,” was published in the United States. The author signed the novel by S. Van Dine. The work was a success and was hailed as a “masterpiece of detective literature.” Its publication marked the beginning of the “golden age of detective fiction” (1920-1940). This novel included a set of characters that became the standard in detective fiction:

1 The detective is a Philo Vance lover, a snob, a polymath, and a fan of the fine arts;

2 Stephen Van Dyne - a kind of virtual, invisible Doctor Watson;

3 John Marchley - District Attorney of New York, a very weak intellectual in professional terms;

4 Sergeant Has is a mute, almost comically mute, policeman.

This period ends with the release of the first part of Anthony Wynne's novels about the detective, Dr. Eustace Hailey. The first book, The Room with the Iron Shutters (1929), dealt with the standard locked room problem. But then the author established himself as a master of another form of impossible crime: murder with an invisible weapon.

Researchers call the next period in the development of the detective genre the “golden age.” It was the years after the Second World War that can be called the heyday of the detective story as a mass phenomenon that captured all segments of society. Countless stories, novellas and novels were written by different authors - who later became classics of the genre, and who no longer left any memory of themselves. Today, detective fiction is the most read genre in almost all countries. Some of its types have also taken shape into independent genres - police novel, children's detective story, women's novel, ironic novel. Therefore, we can confidently call the detective genre the most diverse in literature.

1.3 Detective genre researchers

The detective genre belongs to a type of literature that has long remained unattended by serious criticism. The general availability and popularity of works of this genre raised doubts about their artistic merits. Perhaps the first theorist of the detective story as a special genre was Gilbert Keith Chesterton, who published the article “In Defense of Detective Literature” in 1902. Since then, many reflections on this topic have been published, and they belonged mainly to practitioners of the detective genre. In our country, the impulse for theoretical understanding of detective literature arose relatively recently. Among the authors who wrote on this topic, we should remember Y. K. Markulan, A. Z. Vulis, A. G. Adamov, G. A. Andzhaparidze. The works of these authors are of a review nature. This is explained by the fact that many do not consider the detective genre to be serious literature: they treat it with some disdain, classify it as mass literature and do not consider it worthy of research. Apparently, this is why in Russia there is neither a tradition nor a school of critical analysis of the detective story. However, in our opinion, grassroots, mass literature is also worthy of study. This idea was also expressed at one time by J. Hankisch: “More and more love from today’s readers falls to the lot of literature, which seems to be “outside the law” and has one foot stuck in waste paper. Criticism, which proclaims the monopoly dominance of a high artistic style, does not deal with “low genres,” but the study of “popular literature” promises many literary, cultural, historical and psychological findings. The history of literature cannot be the history of writers only: it should partly be the history of readers.” Meanwhile, reader interest in detective literature is striking in its stability: the genre is one of the most widespread and readable in modern society. But, as the Hungarian researcher of the detective genre T. Keszthelyi rightly notes, “the popularity of the genre cannot compromise it, just as it cannot be a sign of perfection.” Two translated publications are also noted: from the Bulgarian language - “Black Novel” by Bogomil Raynov and “Anatomy detective" by Tibor Keszthely from Hungarian. In these works, the history of the genre is traced, its morphology is analyzed, and contact and typological similarities in the works of different authors are studied. Literary and art critics are trying to uncover the mystery of the century and a half popularity of the detective genre. All of the above studies have one thing in common: they view the detective story as a phenomenon associated primarily with fiction (mass, or formulaic, literature). One of the first to talk about formulaic literature was John Cavelty, who devoted a serious and voluminous monograph to such fiction genres as melodrama, western, detective story. He proposes to understand a literary formula as certain plot blocks that go back to certain archetypes (for example, a “love story”). Their existence is not limited to any one cultural era. Thus, the first feature of formulaic literature is its standardization. The second feature of formulaic literature, its main function is escape and relaxation. Cavelti explains the unusually wide distribution of formulaic literature in our time as follows: “The fact that the formula is an often repeated narrative and plot model makes it a kind of stabilizing principle in culture. The evolution of formulas is the process through which new values and new interests are acquired and assimilated into ordinary consciousness.” Tracing the traditions of the detective genre, the accumulation of elements necessary for its formation, researchers name the names of Shakespeare, Voltaire, Beaumarchais, Godwin, Dickens, Balzac. Perhaps Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann came closest to creating a model of the detective genre in his short story “Mademoiselle de Scudéry” (1818), where there is both a mystery and an investigation of a crime, but “there is no detective character.” Almost all researchers date the true history of the detective story from the time of the appearance of Edgar Allan Poe’s “logical stories” (or “rationalizations”) “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841), “The Mystery of Marie Roger” (1843), “The Stolen Letter” (1844) ), whose common hero was the first famous detective Auguste Dupin. Sometimes two more Poe’s short stories are considered examples of the detective genre: “The Golden Bug” (1843) and “You are the man who did this!” (1844). However, having created the genre, Poe did not become the creator of the term "detective". It was first introduced by Anne Catherine Green, a compatriot of Edgar Allan Poe, who defined the genre in her “The Leavenworth Affair” (1871). So, all researchers of Poe’s work, as well as detective theorists, consider the American romantic to be the founder of this genre, or rather, the detective story. The first person in Russian literary criticism to give a holistic analysis of the works of Edgar Allan Poe and to deduce the genre features of his short stories was Yu. V. Kovalev. In the “Detective Stories” section of his monograph, the scientist analyzes in detail Poe’s “logical stories,” pointing out that this concept is “broader than the concept of a detective story.” The detective story genre has remained faithful to a certain rigid set of rules, a canon, throughout its entire history. “The author of a modern detective story faces the eternal task of being original within the canon.” Here one can trace the similarities with the literature of antiquity and the Middle Ages, where the subordination of art to the canon was determined by the peculiarities of mythological or theocentric consciousness. The detective story seems to carry within itself the remnants of such consciousness, the memories of humanity of a time when faith in the triumph of justice was unshakable. In this way, the detective with his subordination to the canon appeals to modern man with his craving for stability. From the point of view of a writer of the 20th century, a detective story is a “closed structure”, where the plot does not allow semantic fluctuations and the solution is the only possible one. It is precisely because of its normative nature that the aesthetics of the detective genre so often results in sets of rules. It is no coincidence that this genre received its final form precisely in the work of Poe, whose aesthetic views were distinguished by analyticity, rationalism, and a certain normativity.

The most important genre feature of a short story is its volume. “By ethicizing the incident, the short story extremely exposes the core of the plot - the central vicissitudes, and brings vital material into the focus of one event.” This event turns out to be, as a rule, surprising, often paradoxical. “A short story is an unheard-of event that has happened,” said Goethe. G. K. Chesterton wrote in his article “On Detective Novels”: “A detective novel should basically be built on the model of a short story, not a novel.” The long detective novel “faces certain difficulties. The main problem is that a detective novel is a drama of masks, not faces. It owes its existence not to the true, but to the false “I” of the characters. Until the very last chapter, the author is deprived of the right to tell us the most interesting things about his heroes. And until we read the novel to the end, there can be no talk about its philosophy, psychology, morality and religion. Therefore, it is best if its first chapter is also its last at the same time. A detective drama based on a misunderstanding should last exactly as long as a novella."

A short story and a novel built on the principle of a short story turn out to be most suitable for the process of solving a detective mystery. The combination of improbability with realistic details remains the most important structural element of the detective genre. On the one hand, “until the end of the detective story there can be no question of any credibility.” On the other hand, “the detective story is imbued with the so-called realistic ideology, where each object has one single meaning.” A modern theorist of the detective genre writes: “A successful balance of the real and the unreal is created when the whole situation as a whole, although absurd, is still reliable in detail. The action of the detective is straightforward, but scrolled backwards: from the present, from the riddle shown in the exhibition, we go into the past, into the unknown, in order to reconstruct the events that have already played out” [Cit. according to 11, 210-211].

Thus, since many researchers and literary critics often did not take the detective genre seriously, practitioners became theorists of the genre. They studied the first detective stories, researched classic examples of the genre, so that later on their basis they could create their own works, not inferior in artistic value to world-famous novels, short stories and stories.

2 Features of the detective genre

Several more features of the classic detective story were collectively called by N. N. Volsky as the hyperdeterminism of the detective world - “the detective world is much more orderly than the life around us”:

1) Ordinary situation. The conditions in which the events of the detective story take place are generally common and well known to the reader (in any case, the reader himself believes that he is confident in them). Thanks to this, it is initially obvious to the reader which of what is described is ordinary and which is strange, beyond the scope.

2) Stereotypical behavior of characters. The characters are largely devoid of originality, their psychology and behavioral patterns are quite transparent, predictable, and if they have any distinctive features, they become known to the reader. The motives for the actions (including the motives for the crime) of the characters are also stereotypical.

3) The existence of a priori rules for constructing a plot, which do not always correspond to real life. So, for example, in a classic detective story, the narrator and detective, in principle, cannot turn out to be criminals.

One of the most interesting things for all fans of the detective genre is the “Twenty Rules for Writing Detectives” developed by Van Dyne. Ronald Knox, one of the founders of the Detective Club, also proposed his own rules for writing detective stories. However, the modern picture of detective works has long excluded the existence of some points, so we are considering only some of the named rules that are still implemented in detective stories.

1) It is necessary to provide the reader with equal opportunities to unravel the mysteries as the detective, for which purpose it is necessary to clearly and accurately report all incriminating traces;

2) A detective story cannot lack a detective who methodically searches for incriminating evidence, as a result of which he comes to a solution to the riddle;

3) The obligatory crime in a detective story is murder;

4) Only one detective can act in a story - the reader cannot compete with three or four members of the relay team at once;

5) Secret or criminal communities have no place in a detective story;

6) The criminal should be someone mentioned at the beginning of the novel, but it should not be a person whose train of thought the reader was allowed to follow.

Each of the above features is precedent-setting; the canons and rules of the genre appeared gradually, after the publication of the first works. Trying to understand the success of novels of the new genre, writers created their own works in the image and likeness of previous ones. However, at the same time, everyone tried to bring something of their own, different from the others, something memorable and interesting. That is why we will never find strict observance of all the rules of the genre in one work, and this is of no use, because very soon it would have outlived its usefulness, without even providing the opportunity for further development.

2.1 Features of English-language detective works

The classic English detective story was based on the values of a stable society consisting of law-abiding people. One of the most important motives for reading such detective novels is the experience of the restoration of normative order and, as a consequence, the stabilization of one’s own position (including social status). This basic outline of the detective novel underwent significant changes in the 1930s. in the American detective story, primarily among D. Hammett and R. Chandler and their many followers. The reality of that time with its problems, conflicts and dramas invades the narrative - alcohol smuggling, corruption, economic crime, mafia, etc. “All this happened against the backdrop of a crisis of confidence in the legal and judicial system - it is no coincidence that a new type of hero appeared in American criminal films. novels." Detective literature, and especially the classic detective story, due to its specificity, is more focused on thinking and logic than traditional fiction. In a classic detective story, the story is told not from the 1st or 3rd person, but from the point of view of the assistant detective.

The detective genre, of course, was in fashion in other countries - in France and America, but only in England was the “classical” school of detective fiction founded. Here the literary form underwent the most careful and complete processing. “The main difficulty in writing detective novels arises from the fact that the reader learns and is educated in the process of reading. If you have shown the reader how to examine the traces left by a criminal at a crime scene, then you will no longer surprise him with footprints again.”

An English detective story speaks primarily about England and almost always about the English (Hercule Poirot does not count). England has long traditions - national, social, literary. The English detective story explores some of these traditions and draws on others. The famous British critic and literary critic Walter Allen, in his work “Tradition and Dream,” noted the specifics of the English novel in comparison with the American one. “US writers tend to portray an unusual, lonely individual, who by his very nature is forced out of society, the environment and even his own microcosm, to which he opposes. British novelists, distinguished by their adherence to tradition, thoroughness and balance, on the contrary, tend to take the character in the fullness of his social connections, environment and motivations; revealing the relationship between man and society, they do not oppose them to each other, but consider them in unity.” This observation also seems to be true for the detective genre. In the American detective story, lonely criminals, lonely victims, lonely truth-seekers and detectives act as if there is no society for them, as if they are alone in the world, as if crime is their personal matter, and the vicissitudes of their destinies are dictated not only by the cruel laws of the American social system, but by certain fate, higher powers. In the English detective story it is quite the opposite. Even when this or that character goes back to an American literary prototype, he is closely connected with English reality. “Sherlock Holmes, Lord Peter Wimsey (novels by D. Sayers) are figures close to Dupin, but try to tear them out of their environment, from the system of their personal and social connections! And these characters are moderately conventional, and they are written not without a romantic touch, but you still won’t be able to pull them out.”

The element of national difference even penetrates into the intrigue. In American detective fiction, the emphasis is usually on action or on the description of legal proceedings. English authors prefer unhurried and thorough intellectual and psychological inquiry. Another thing that is very important for them is who exactly carries out this inquiry. “Professionals, especially employees of Scotland Yard, in a word, the police play a secondary role in the English detective story; It happens that it doesn’t perform at all. And if she conducts an investigation, then it is as if in her unofficial capacity, attracted to the case not out of direct duty of service, but through an acquaintance - through relatives, friends, to help “without publicity”, to help out, to assist. The place of professionals, with the light hand of Conan Doyle, was taken by amateurs who became such by vocation, by mentality, or cultivating the investigation of crimes as a hobby, or even simply involved in the investigation by force of circumstances.”

The point here, apparently, is not the author’s whim, but the historically established way of life. Unlike France and even the USA, in England the line between a person’s private and public life is quite sharp. Not just anyone, but the British came up with the famous formula “My home is my fortress.” The police are still extremely reluctant to be allowed into this fortress. The police, in turn, complain with good reason that this attitude interferes with their work. The policeman cannot become a heroic, let alone a romantic figure in the eyes of the English public, and therefore is hardly suitable for the role of a literary hero. In England there were never conditions for the flourishing of the so-called “police” novel, so popular in France since the 19th century, and in the 20th which gave birth to the multi-volume epic of Georges Simenon. A hero like Commissioner Maigret could not arise in an English detective story. It is impossible to imagine Holmes or Poirot saying something like this:

"... our main task is to protect the state, its governments of all times, institutions, then the protection of money, public goods, private property, and only then human life...Has it ever occurred to you to look through the criminal code? One would have to go to page 177 to find the words relating to crimes against a person... The 274th paragraph on begging is ahead of the 295th, which talks about the premeditated murder of a person..." .

2.1.1 Realization of the image of a detective couple “detective - his companion”

Poe's most important contribution to the development of the detective genre was the creation of an inseparable pair of main characters: an intellectual detective and his close friend, who plays the role of a chronicler of the events described. This compositional and narrative technique is used by many of Poe’s followers, including A. Conan Doyle and A. Christie. We can say that Edgar Allan Poe in his logical novels created a certain model of the hero of the detective genre. One of the famous writers, a master of the detective genre, Dorothy Sayers, wrote: “Dupin is an eccentric person, and eccentricity has been in high esteem among detective writers for several generations.”

According to many researchers and theorists of the detective genre, in order to write a good classic detective story, it is necessary to comply with some laws of this genre, as examples are “Twenty Rules for Writing Detectives” by Stephen Van Dine or the Ten Commandments of Ronald Knox. These principles were formed after studying detective novels and stories by writers whose works we now call classics of the genre. One of the conditions includes having an assistant detective present during the investigation of the crime. In a classic detective story, such an assistant is most often also the narrator and the detective's friend. We owe the appearance of this tandem in detective stories to Edgar Allan Poe, but the Holmes-Watson pairing of Arthur Conan Doyle gained the greatest world fame. Also no less famous were the heroes of Agatha Christie - Poirot-Hastings and Rex Stout - Wolfe-Goodwin. If you separate these pairs, it becomes obvious that the presence of an assistant hardly has any effect on the talents of famous detectives. What are these companions of the great detectives and what are they for? Firstly, according to the same written and unwritten rules of the genre, the detective himself cannot perform the function of a narrator, but someone is needed who will be next to the detective, describe the progress of the investigation and present to the reader the facts, evidence, suspects, as well as their own inferences. Secondly, characters like Watson, Hastings or Goodwin contrast perfectly with their eminent friends. Great detectives look even greater against their background, which means that a companion is needed, first of all, by the author of a detective story in order to emphasize the importance of the main character of the work. And thirdly, as Ronald Knox's ninth commandment states:

"The detective's foolish friend, Watson in one guise or another, should not hide any of the thoughts that come into his head; in his mental abilities he should be slightly inferior - but only slightly - to the average reader.".

From this we can conclude that the detective’s assistant represents the quintessence of all readers at once, their reflection on the pages of the work. This is the character who draws the reader into the action, giving him a personal place in the detective story. However, despite the same role, each character “plays” it differently. If Christie and Conan Doyle can trace some similarities in their secondary characters, then Stout's Archie Goodwin is strikingly different from his colleagues. Readers will learn about the circumstances of Captain Hastings and Doctor Watson's acquaintance with their companions in the very first works of their creators. The position of both heroes is also quite similar. Here's what Christie writes:

"I had been invalided home from the Front; and, after spending some months in a rather depressing Convalescent Home, was given a month"s sick leave. Having

no near relations or friends, I was trying to make up my mind what to do, when I ran across John Cavendish" .

And this is a quote from Conan Doyle:

"I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. (...)For months my life was despaired of, and when at last I came to myself and became convalescent, I was so weak and emaciated that a medical board determined that not a day should be lost in sending me back to England. (…)I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air - or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be" .

Stout has a different picture - at the time of the events described, Goodwin had been living in Wolfe’s mansion for 7 years, but there is no information about how they met and what brought them together:

"In seven years I've only seen Wolfe surprised three times." Or "- Archie! Completely pointless in in this case listen to Mr. Cramer's opinion. It seemed to me that in seven years you have learned this." .

If we talk about the position occupied by these three heroes, here we can also highlight some similarities and differences. What they have in common is that each of the heroes lives or lived for some time together with his detective friend, as well as the fact that each of the couples has truly friendly relations, and not professional ones. But even here Archie Goodwin stands out from the overall picture. He is not just a friend and assistant to the detective, but works for him:

“I told you a long time ago, Mr. Wolfe, that I get half my salary for my daily work, and the other half for listening to your boasts.”

“I used it as a case for documents: police ID, firearms permit and detective’s license.” .

We have no such information about Hastings or Watson and do not know whether the great detectives shared their salaries with them. However, they both have a military background, respectively, each knows how to handle weapons and, if necessary, can use them.

It should also be noted the attitude of the detectives themselves towards their friends and vice versa. The most harmonious relationship, in our opinion, is between Sherlock Holmes and Watson. Naturally, Watson admires, and deservedly admires, Holmes's talents:

"I confess that I was considerably started by this fresh proof of the practical nature of my companion"s theories. My respect for his powers of analysis increased wondrously."

"You have brought detection as near an exact science as it will ever be brought in this world. My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest way in which I uttered them. I had already observed that he was as sensitive to flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of her beauty" .

Holmes does not treat his friend with disdain. In every case, he emphasizes in every possible way how significant Watson’s presence is for him, praising him for his ability to grasp the essence of events and their accurate presentation.

"It is really very good of you to come, Watson," he said. "It makes a significant difference to me, having someone with me on whom I can thoroughly rely" .

"Watson, if you can spare the time, I should be very glad of your company".

"I am glad to have a friend with whom I can discuss my results" .

In Agatha Christie, we see a completely different picture: Hercule Poirot does not miss the opportunity to speak unflatteringly about his friend’s mental abilities and exalt himself.

"Then," I said, "what do you deduce?" To which my friend only made a rather irritating reply, encouraging me to use my own natural faculties" .

“You have a wonderful heart, my friend, but you don’t know how to use your brain properly.” .

At the same time, Hastings himself often doubts the talents of the famous detective and allows himself to express his doubts to his face:

"I had a great respect for Poirot"s sagacity - except on the occasions when he was what I described to myself as "foolishly pig-headed" .

“Sometimes you remind me of a peacock with a loose tail,” I quipped. .

Nero Wolfe's relationship with Archie Goodwin cannot be called unambiguous - on the one hand, they are undoubtedly friends, ready to do anything for each other in times of danger. On the other hand, it is impossible to imagine more dissimilar and unsuitable people for living together. This effect is only enhanced by the fact that all the novels and stories about Nero Wolfe are written in an ironic manner, which cannot but affect the boss’s communication with his subordinate. Goodwin is a man of action, he cannot sit in one place for a long time, but even the need to get up from his favorite chair plunges Wolf into despondency.

“Archie, understand this: as a man of action you are acceptable, you are even competent. But, not for one minute could I reconcile myself with you as a psychologist.” .

“How are you?” Wulf asked politely. “Sorry that I don’t get up, I rarely do this at all.” .

Goodwin, while recognizing his friend's genius, is still dissatisfied with his methods of work or his role in the investigation:

“When we were investigating a case, I wanted to kick him a thousand times, watching how lazily he moved towards the elevator, heading upstairs to the greenhouse to play with his plants, or reading a book, weighing every phrase, or discussing with Fritz the most efficient way to store dry herbs when I'm running around like a dog waiting for him to tell her where the hole is."

"I have a feeling that I am something like stylish furniture or a lap dog for you" .

In a classic detective story, it is generally accepted that the detective always works for an idea, and not for a reward. The motives that motivate him to do this or that business are different, be it the acquittal of an unjustly accused person or the desire to solve an extremely complex puzzle in which he sees some challenge to his abilities. In any case, it's not money. Conan Doyle fully agrees with this stereotype, and therefore Watson characterizes Holmes this way:

"Holmes, however, like all great artists, lived for his art"s sake, and, save in the case of the Duke of Holdernesse, I have rarely known him claim any large reward for his inestimable services. So unworldly was he - or so capricious - that he frequently refused his help to the powerful and wealthy where the problem made no appeal to his sympathies, while he would devote weeks of the most intense application to the affairs of some humble client whose case presented those strange and dramatic qualities which appealed to his imagination and challenged his ingenuity" .

Hercule Poirot, by and large, also fits the image of a disinterested lover of mysterious stories. He is interested in the process of solving a crime. And if during the investigation family dramas are revealed or love secrets, he does not always make them public. Nero Wolfe differs somewhat in his opinions:

“I have other ways to deal with boredom, but fighting criminals is my job. And I will hunt anyone if they pay me for it.” .

However, it cannot be said that Wulf takes on every case he hears about; he, like other detectives, is primarily attracted by the mystery and how interesting and exciting this very case can be.

A separate point is the question of the relationship between private investigators and law enforcement officers. According to the typical set of heroes of a classic detective story, the presence of an official representative of the law is necessary in the novel or story. Otherwise, an amateur detective engaged in investigations “for the love of art” would not have the right to exist. Another important function of the image of a policeman is to again emphasize the merits of the main character. When creating this image, authors most often use irony, sometimes grotesque or sarcasm, and this choice is quite justified. When Watson or Hastings make mistakes in conclusions, reasoning and actions, we can forgive them for this and understand, because, as mentioned above, we ourselves are reflected in them. But when the same mistakes are made by the police, and even against the backdrop of the impeccable logic of an amateur detective, one cannot do without irony, especially since the detective himself, with all his talent, cannot do without a policeman. However, every detective realizes that the laurels of the next solved case will not go to him, and therefore the notes of disdain and unflattering epithets that sometimes escape from the lips of the main characters of detective novels are not surprising.

“This will bring you new glory,” I remarked. “Pas du tout,” Poirot calmly objected. “The glory will be shared between Japp and the local inspector.” .

"That's all I wanted to find out, madam. But don't worry - your English policeman, who does not have the extraordinary abilities of Hercule Poirot in the least, will not be able to do such a task." .

"And supposing the Coroner's jury returns a verdict of Wilful Murder against Alfred Inglethorp. What becomes of your theories, then?-They would not be shaken because twelve stupid men had happened to make a mistake! But that will not occur. For one thing, a country jury is not anxious to take responsibility upon itself, and Mr. Inglethorp stands practically in the position of local squire. Also," he added placidly, "I should not allow it!" .

"I "m not sure about whether I shall go. I am the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather - that is, when the fit is on me, for I can be spry enough at times."

"Why, it is just such a chance as you have been longing for."

"My dear fellow, what does it matter to me? Supposing I unravel the whole matter, you may be sure that Gregson, Lestrade, and Co. will pocket all the credit. Thatcomesofbeinganunofficialpersonage" .

Officials, in turn, do not like private detectives for their great insight and ability to see what was beyond their own understanding. However, this does not prevent them from admitting defeat and sometimes admiring the work of a private detective:

“Do you remember the Altard case? What a rascal he was! Half the European police were chasing him, and all to no avail. In the end, we captured him in Antwerp, and only thanks to the efforts of Monsieur Poirot.” .

Summarizing all of the above, it can be noted that, despite the difference in styles, methods of describing the investigation, as well as our own interpretation of the image of the obligatory “detective-assistant” pair, we find some similarities in this image, which emphasizes the limitations of the genre. However, the differences in the vision of this image prove the skill of the authors who created it within the framework of a detective novel.

2.1.2 Intrigue and two-story construction of works

The detective story attracts the researcher with such genre properties as the stability of compositional schemes, the stability of stereotypes, and the repetition of basic structures. This certainty of features makes it possible to consider a detective story as a “simple cell.” In the detective genre, a certain standard for plotting has developed. At the very beginning, a crime is committed. The first victim appears. From this epicenter of future events, three rays of questions diverge: who? How? Why? Detective intrigue comes down to a simple scheme: crime, investigation, solution to the mystery. This scheme develops into a chain of events that forms a dramatic action. The variability here is minimal. The plot looks different. The choice of life material, the specific character of the detective, the location of the action, the method of investigation, and the determination of the motives for the crime create a multiplicity of plot constructions within the boundaries of one genre. The possibilities for variation here increase dramatically. The relative importance of the author’s personality also increases. His moral, social and aesthetic positions, no matter how hidden they may seem, will reveal themselves in the nature of the plot design of the material.

From the point of view of intrigue, two types of works can be distinguished in detective stories: those that captivate with intense action, and those that captivate with the intensity of intellectual search. Psychological motivations and the persuasiveness of fictional characters are required in both cases. The most striking example of an adventurous detective story is the works of the American author Dashiell Hammett. The instantaneous change of events and their alternation create the effect of continuous action, through which characters are revealed, the social atmosphere is shown and, most importantly, the crime is revealed. Detective novels of this type create a kind of picture before the reader's eyes, a film showing what is written.

"I contacted Panburn by telephone and told him that Axford had vouched for him."

"The only noteworthy thing I learned on Ashbury Street was that the girl's suitcases were taken away in a green van."

“In the storage room I learned that the suitcases were sent to Baltimore. I sent another telegram to Baltimore, in which I reported the luggage receipt numbers.”

“In the afternoon I received photocopies of the photograph and the girl’s letters, sent one copy of each original to Baltimore. Then I returned to the taxi companies. Two of them had nothing for me. Only the third informed me of two calls from the girl’s apartment.”

"A young man with shiny blond hair brought them with lightning speed - a rather thick folder,-and Axford hastily found among them the one I mentioned.”

“Our appeal to the press brought results. The very next morning, information began to arrive from all sides from many people who had seen the disappeared poet in dozens of places.” .

These quotes from Hammett's story "The Woman with the Silver Eyes" perfectly reflect the style of the American detective. Each of the detective's actions is not described in detail. All examples illustrate the events of one day. Dialogues are most often replaced by indirect speech.

Examples of an intellectual psychological detective story are the best novels of Agatha Christie, Conan Doyle, Gilbert Chesterton and many others. The works of these authors captivate you, just as solving a chess problem, a puzzle, or a mathematical equation captivates you. Here the reader is not an outside observer of events, worried about the heroes, but a full participant in the inquiry. The fewer the characters, the deeper you can penetrate into the character of each of them, study the personality formed by time and environment. The most striking example is Agatha Christie's story “The Four Suspects.” From the title it is clear that the circle of persons involved in this case is very limited.

"But there"s the other aspect of the case - the one I was speaking about. You see, there were four people who might have done the trick. One "s guilty, but the other three are innocent. And unless the truth is found out, those three are going to remain under the terrible shadow of doubt."

"Dr. Rosen fell down the stairs one morning and was found dead about half an hour later. At the time the accident must have taken place, Gertrud was in her kitchen with the door closed and heard nothing - so she says. Fraulein Greta was in the garden, planting some bulbs - again, so she says. The gardener, Dobbs, was in the small potting shed having his elevenses-so he says; and the secretary was out for a walk, and once more there is only his own word for it. No one had an alibi - no one can corroborate anyone else"s story. But one thing is certain. No one from outside could have done it, for a stranger in the little village of King"s Gnaton would be noticed without fail" .

This is the main intrigue of such works - there are suspects and not many of them, there is a crime and a possible alibi for each character. Now the reader is given the opportunity to unravel the mystery along with the heroes of the work. Competing in the ability to draw conclusions or being content with the author’s explanation is a purely individual matter.

A talented detective story fulfills all three of its functions: it condemns a crime, provides knowledge of some new aspects of life, and “packs” all this into a tightly coherent plot that can capture the reader’s attention. That is why the classic detective genre is no less popular in our time. In the classic English detective story we will not find any naturalism or depiction of bloody scenes. The crime appears as a purely intellectual mystery. The French detective, unlike the English one, is open-ended, the number of suspects is not determined in advance, anyone could be among them. Unlike English, it portrays crime as a product of circumstance rather than character. This is Simenon's detective story, containing a huge amount of picturesque details, replete with descriptions of localities and customs. America, unlike England and France combined, prefers the rapid development of events. There is even an opinion that in America there is no detective story, there is only an action movie. This is not entirely true, although in general heroes value decisive action first and legality only second. Perhaps for a country like the United States, this kind of work provides the reader with a much-needed opportunity to let off steam. Entrepreneurship, readiness to circumvent the law if necessary, or at least use it at one's own discretion - these are the virtues of American heroes.

It turns out that in each country there has been a distribution of priorities, and therefore the functions of a detective. In England, the moral function comes first - the criminal must be punished, family secrets preserved, and tarnished honor restored. In France, authors gravitate towards the cognitive function - the depiction of the psychology of the detective, the actions of people in certain circumstances, the causes and motives of the crime are described as carefully as the investigation process itself. American detectives prefer to give the reader the opportunity to relax, to escape from Everyday life Accordingly, the entertainment or entertaining function becomes paramount for them.

Researchers of the detective genre point to a special “two-plot construction” of the detective story. It includes “the plot of the investigation and the plot of the crime, each of which has its own composition, its own content, its own set of heroes.” For the authors of later detective stories, the investigation of a crime will become an end in itself, will acquire an independent artistic value. In classic English detective stories, the plot of the crime is usually presented in the form of a story. The reader almost never witnesses a murder or theft, and often does not “visit” the crime scene, but learns all the details from a third party. A textbook example is Agatha Christie's stories from the Miss Marple series - an excellent example of the fact that a crime can be solved while sitting at home.

"When I was here last year, we made it a habit to discuss various mysterious cases. There were five or six of us. It was all Raymond West's idea. He's a writer! Well, and each of us in turn told some mysterious story, the answer to which he alone knew. They competed, so to speak, in deductive reasoning: who would be closest to the truth.

- And what?

“We had no idea that Miss Marple would want to join us, but out of politeness, of course, we offered.” And then something unexpected happened. The venerable lady outdid us all!

- Yes you!

- Pure truth. And, believe me, without much effort.

- Can't be. She hardly ever left St. Mary Mead.

“But, as she says, there she had unlimited opportunities to study human nature as if under a microscope.” .

In Conan Doyle, Holmes most often receives a letter or note describing the crime, or the client tells himself why he needed the detective’s services.

"It was a few weeks before my own marriage, during the days when I was still sharing rooms with Holmes in Baker Street, that he came home from an afternoon stroll to find a letter on the table waiting for him" .

"By the way, since you are interested in these little problems, and since you are good enough to chronicle one or two of my trifling experiences, you may be interested in this." He threw over a sheet of thick, pink-tinted notepaper which had been lying open upon the table. “It came by the last post,” he said. “Read it aloud”

In the American detective story, more attention is paid to the plot of the crime. A murder can happen completely unexpectedly in a building full of people, as, for example, in Rex Stout's story "Black Orchids", and the author will certainly pay attention to the description of the corpse, its unnaturally twisted leg or the trickle of blood on the forehead. It cannot be said that there are no such descriptions at all in English detective stories, but they are presented without any particular details and rather resemble a police report - only facts and no emotions. If we talk about the heroes of the plot of crimes, then here too you can find some differences. In the English detective story, people kill reluctantly: the detectives are under pressure from circumstances, the criminals are burdened by social injustice. In American - easily.

"Fag was in favor of immediately killing both Bark and Ray. I tried to knock this thought out of my head: it would not have given anything. I had Rhea around my little finger. He was ready to throw himself into the fire for me. It seemed to me that I had convinced Fag, but... In the end, we decided that Bark and I would take the car and leave, and Ray would play the fool in front of you, show you some pair and say that he mistook them for us. I went to get a cloak and gloves , and Bark walked towards the car. And Fag shot him. I didn't know he wanted to do that! I wouldn't let him! Believe me! I wouldn't let Bark get hurt." .

The content of the investigation plot in each detective story comes down to one thing - the detective investigates the crime, finds the culprit, and reveals the secret. Naturally, this is only the basis on which the rest of the plot and the author’s skill are superimposed. One point becomes common to all detective stories of any author in any country - the revelation of the secret always occurs at the very end of the work. Otherwise, the authors find their own ways to depict the detective's methods, character and actions. The English detective is a detective of thoughts, the American one is of action. It is not for nothing that Holmes’s statement “This is a three-way case, Watson” has become an aphorism reflecting the main essence of the English detective novel - the main skill of any detective is the ability to think outside the box and reason logically.

One way or another, the detective genre today has a myriad of works that can please any reader. People who are drawn to their inner life and have an analytical mind gravitate toward classic English detective stories. Realists prefer French authors. Typically, such people are attentive to the little things in life. Anyone who reads the works of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler or Rex Stout has a determined and unbalanced character, prone to unbridled expression of feelings. He is not interested in focused unraveling of intellectual mysteries. However, all detective lovers are attracted by one thing - a mystery that needs to be solved.

2.1.3 Detective and fairy tale

A very interesting idea was expressed by Tibor Keszthelyi in his “Anatomy of a Detective”: “The godparents of the detective seriously underestimated the newborn child of literature. They called it a novel or a short story and condemned it as such, although it is a fairy tale.”

The main figure in a detective story is a detective, a man of exceptional abilities, an urban folk hero, similar to the hero of a fairy tale. Both of them commit never-before-seen, never-heard-of, inimitable acts, and in the process are sometimes exposed to mortal danger. They fight with riddles, secrets, puzzling mysteries. They fight against witches and wizards, terrible, brilliant villains. In adventures and struggles, they are led and attracted by the hope of a successful search for treasures, of enrichment, but in most cases a more noble goal is the salvation of a person, the destruction of evil. The detective must acquit the innocently convicted suspect and must expose the murderer. And he, like a fairy-tale hero, is driven by faith in his calling, fueled by a passion for searching for truth.

Both of them need either witty thinking or physical courage to solve the problem. “The prince on a white horse must give a cunning answer to three tricky questions or fight tooth and nail with a seven-headed dragon to win the princess’s hand. The famous detective - to conduct a brilliant investigation to reveal the mystery and, perhaps, with the help of a weapon, to neutralize a dangerous villain, ready for anything, backed up against the wall” - Keszthelyi’s words only confirm the fact that a fairy tale and a detective story equally show a chain of events around only sketchily outlined images . Neither a fairy tale nor a detective story provide developed characters. The characters in a detective story are as static and unchanging as in the eternal world of a fairy tale. The reader receives them ready-made, in a certain state. They do not change, do not improve, do not develop.

The marital status of the master detective also remains unchanged; time stops for him, like for a sleeping beauty who wakes up after a hundred years fresh, vigorous and youthful. Hercule Poirot retired from the Brussels police in 1904, and only then began to practice his craft again as a private detective in London. Since then, he has carried out investigations with unremitting energy for decades, without losing either physical vigor or freshness of spirit. If we assume that he retired at sixty, then in 1974 he would have been exactly one hundred and thirty years old. The old maid, the famous detective Jane Marple was introduced to the general public in 1928 in a short story, and in the more than half a century since then she has aged only twenty years. The faces around them also do not age. Sherlock Holmes's housekeeper, Doctor Watson, Jane Marple's nephew and others appear before readers again and again.

The Innocent Suspects are the Cinderellas and princesses of a detective story at the mercy of the villain. Both there and here events are replete with repetitions and constant motifs. The youngest prince is always accompanied by happiness. Having solved all three problems, he wins the award. The detective story is also full of stereotypical twists. Sherlock Holmes usually selects interesting cases from his correspondence. The Perry Mason adventures of the American writer Earl Gardner invariably begin with the fact that someone wants to use the services of the famous lawyer in some strange or suspiciously trivial case.

"My secretary," said Perry Mason, in a calm tone of voice, "told me that you wanted to see me about a dog and about a will." The man nodded. "A dog and a will," he repeated mechanically.

"Well," said Perry Mason, "let's talk about the will first." I don"t know much about dogs" .

"I"m going to begin at the beginning and give you the whole business. I won't take much of your time. Do you know anything about glass eyes?

Perry Mason shook his head.

"All right, I"ll tell you something. Making a glass eye is an art. There aren't over thirteen or fourteen people in the United States who can make them. A good glass eye can"t be distinguished from a natural eye, if the socket isn't damaged."

Mason, watching him closely, said, "You"re moving both eyes."

"Of course I"m moving both eyes. My eye socket wasn't injured. I've got about ninety per cent of natural motion. "I"ve got a set of half a dozen eyes - duplicates for some, and some for wear under different conditions. I had one eye that was made bloodshot. It was a swell job. I used it when I"d been out on a binge the night before."

The lawyer nodded slowly. "Go on," he said.

"Someone stole it and left a counterfeit in its place" .

In both the first and second examples, the cases start out rather strange and unusual, the howling of a dog and the theft of a glass eye can hardly be called serious offenses, but subsequently, in both cases, the detective has to deal with murders. After the crime is discovered, there is a series of obligatory episodes: interrogations, conversations. The exposure is usually followed by an explanation. Both here and there the presence of persons is required, hiding their true name, title, profession. Therefore, both here and there the motive of recognition-exposure is characteristic. In both actions, rhythm matters: slowing down events, intervening in them exactly at midnight.

The Industrial Revolution dealt a mortal blow to feudalism. The city absorbs the village and transforms human relationships. Folk art is giving way to mass culture. The fairy tale, delighting with miracles and surprises, this time itself transformed into a detective story, and by the second half of the 20th century it changed again, turning into science fiction. However, the structure remained the same. The compositions of a fairy tale and a detective story are equally bipolar: they are divided into a problem and a solution. A study of the compositions of various fairy tales has shown that a simple structure of this kind can support at most two storylines and a maximum of ten episodes. The detective also does not transgress these limits: murders are rarely committed serially (in this case they are also strung together in one storyline), and the number of suspects is always expressed in a single digit. V. Ya. Propp in his book “Morphology of a Fairy Tale” derives a simple formula for the structure of the division of roles: enemy - hero - giver, helper. The same formula can be successfully applied to a detective story: killer - detective - witness, suspect, respectively.

It is impossible to say for sure how legitimate this theory is, but it is interesting that the detective genre has spread to children's literature.

2.1.4 Elements of reality in detective fiction

Nevertheless, the detective story still remains a realistic genre, despite the elements of the game and the similarity to a fairy tale. The reader is reliably informed of the facts of reality and the real events of the described century.

In Conan Doyle, the seemingly unshakable order of the Victorian era with its calm and stability is as if absorbed into the personality of Sherlock Holmes, his cold analysis, superiority, and self-confident gestures. Even an intense interest in crime also testifies to the secret desire of a person of that time to hear an amazing sensation that would save him from the boredom of life. “The imperial authority of England was at its zenith, the whole world was at her feet, it seemed to her, like Sherlock Holmes, who, with condescending insight, again and again restored the Victorian order, exposing the criminals who were destroying it.” Street pictures of the outskirts of London, descriptions of carriages, estates, suburbs - all these are real images against which the plot unfolds.

"It was a cold morning of the early spring, and we sat after breakfast on either side of a cheery fire in the old room at Baker Street. A thick fog rolled down between the lines of dun-coloured houses, and the opposing windows loomed like dark, shapeless blurs through the heavy yellow wreaths" .

Upper Swandam Lane is a vile alley lurking behind the high wharves which line the north side of the river to the east of London Bridge. Between a slop-shop and a gin-shop, approached by a steep flight of steps leading down to a black gap like the mouth of a cave, I found the den of which I was in search" .

Agatha Christie's composition, simple plot formula, closed location, limited circle of suspects, rationally constructed plot reproduce another historically characteristic geographical unity - the “peaceful” mood of the twenties and thirties. The English countryside with all its boredom, rustling gossip, superstitions, ancient castles with fireplaces in them, five o'clock tea, library rooms, family secrets, written and unwritten wills, tired retired colonels and majors, provincial aristocrats living surrounded by family.

"It does remind me a little of Annie Poultny," she admitted. "Of course the letter is perfectly plain - both to Mrs. Bantry and myself. I don"t mean the church-social letter, but the other one. You living so much in London and not being a gardener, Sir Henry, would not have been likely to notice."

"My sister and I had a German governess - a Fraulein. A very sentimental creature. She taught us the language of flowers - a forgotten study nowadays, but most charming."

In the end he chose a village in Somerset - King "s Gnaton, which was seven miles from a railway station and singularly untouched by civilization" .

American detectives have a different natural background. There, reality presents a different kind of scene. From the stories of Earl S. Gardner, the reader learns about the manipulated power of the press, the environment of large American cities, airplanes as a common means of transportation within the country, and the procedure for legal proceedings.

"Have you located Patton? - Mason asked.

Yes, we"ve located him, and we"re pretty certain that he"s in his apartment. We"ve got quite a bit of dope on the racket he runs, perhaps enough to make it look as though we could start a criminal prosecution. He"s living at the Holliday Apartments out on Maple Avenue, 3508 is the number. He"s got apartment 302.

I"ve looked the place up. It"s an apartment house that pretends to have a hotel service, but doesn"t have very much. There"s an automatic elevator and a desk in the lobby. Sometimes there"s some one on duty at the desk, but not very often. I have an idea we won"t have any trouble getting up there unannounced. We can give him a third degree, and we can probably get a confession out of him" .

Despite this, famous hero Gardner's detective lawyer Perry Mason did not become the model of the American detective. His image is completely different - he is more like a sheriff, in his behavior, gestures, methods of investigation, and adventures, one can feel that his main law is still physical superiority or weapons. Neither intellectual argumentation nor psychological reflection suits him. He is characterized rather by self-confidence, based on excellent physical training and a loaded revolver, laconicism, monotonous severity and coldness, perseverance, vigilant readiness for decisive action. A direct line from here leads to the American detective hero of the twenties and thirties, who instead of a tuxedo wears an ordinary street jacket, and exchanges the fragrant cigar of the English “gentleman detective” for a strong cigarette or tobacco. For the legacy of the “wild west” was already permeated by new social phenomena, the gangster romance of America in the twenties, and the energetic pace of life. In a word, the most typical American detective is Dashiell Hammett. Among his followers, the detective master becomes increasingly deformed, distorted, and becomes rude and cruel. Pictures of the life of American crime are accurately reflected from the inside.

"It's a joint. It's run by Joplin Tin Star, a former safecracker who put his money into the place. Prohibition made motels profitable. He's making more money now than he did when he was emptying the cash register. The restaurant is just a front. "White Shack "This is a transshipment point for alcohol, which then spreads through Halfmoon Bay throughout the country; Joplin makes a huge profit from this" .

In England, the genre actually tangibly reflects the life perception of the middle and upper classes. This is also clear from the social environment that is traditional for the English detective story - an elegant world located at a safe distance from little people, from the street, professional criminals, foreign crooks, ordinary places of action, objects, events. Sherlock Holmes' investigations often involve people and objects originating from exotic locales. Australia, South America, Latin and Slavic Europe, Norway, Switzerland, North America, India - in the eyes of the citizens of the island country, all this is some kind of distant and exciting world.

"From time to time I heard some vague account of his doings: of his summons to Odessa in the case of the Trepoff murder, of his clearing up of the singular tragedy of the Atkinson brothers at Trincomalee, and finally of the mission which he had accomplished so delicately and successfully for the reigning family of Holland" .

Dorothy Sayers' stories featured solid, decent, well-mannered young people with good manners and rosy-cheeked young ladies. The impressive army of guests invited to the weekend were either always changing clothes for lunch, dinner, for walks, or conducting an investigation into the disappearance of daggers. They strictly observed meal times even if the owner of the house lay stabbed or strangled in his room. “Of course, there was never a murder in the cafeteria. The night hours were not intended for love, but - in accordance with the code of decency of the genre - for sleep or murder."

"My dear Charles," said the young man with the monocle, "it doesn't do for people, especially doctors, to go about "thinking" things. They may get into frightful trouble. In Pritchard's case, I consider Dr. Paterson did all he reasonably could by refusing a certificate for Mrs. Taylor and sending that uncommonly disquieting letter to the registrar. He couldn't help the man's being a fool. If there had only been an inquest on Mrs. Taylor, Pritchard would probably have been frightened off and left his wife alone. After all, Paterson hadn't a spark of real evidence. And suppose he'd been quite wrong- what a dustup there'd have been!"

The downside to this approach is the portrayal of servants. The driver, the footman, the maid, the maid, the cook, the gardener, the valet - they are all comic figures or dubious characters. Agatha Christie makes them speak in slang, thereby emphasizing their primitiveness. For some reason, drivers are traditionally described most unkindly. This approach is clearly noticeable in England, where the arrogance of the upper and middle classes was felt in relation to the large layer of domestic servants at that time.

"Instead he asked what the mysterious Zarida was like. Mrs Pritchard entered with gusto upon a description.

Black hair in coiled knobs over her ears - her eyes were half closed - great black rims round them - she had a black veil over her mouth and chin - and she spoke in a kind of singing voice with a marked foreign accent - Spanish, I think -

In fact all the usual stock-in-trade, - said George cheerfully" .

“What vile hints! They suspect that I robbed Madame! Everyone knows that the police are unbearably stupid! But you, monsieur, are like a Frenchman...

“Belgian,” Poirot corrected her, to which Celestine did not pay the slightest attention.

- Monsieur should not remain indifferent when such a monstrous lie is erected against her. Why doesn't anyone pay attention to the maid? Why should she suffer because of this impudent red-cheeked girl, no doubt a born thief. She knew from the very beginning that this was a dishonest person! She watched her all the time. Why didn't those idiots from the police search the thief! She wouldn’t be at all surprised if Madame’s pearls were found on that mean girl!”

Thus, no matter how much imagination the author of detective stories has, when inventing the plot of his works, he builds them on a solid foundation of the surrounding reality, reflecting the spirit and mood of his era.

2.2 Children's detective

Speaking about the detective genre, one cannot fail to mention such a phenomenon as a children's detective story. It is believed that this genre came to children's books at the beginning of the 20th century in the wake of a general fascination with stories about famous detectives. However, back in 1896, Mark Twain’s story “Tom Sawyer the Detective” was published, in which a crime that has baffled all adults is solved by world-famous boys. In 1928, a story for children by the German writer Erich Köstner entitled “Emil and the Detectives” appeared. Also worth noting are the stories of the Swedish writer Astrid Lindgren about the “famous detective Kalle Blomkvist.” In Russia, the first detective work for children was the novel “Dirk” by Anatoly Naumovich Rybakov.

Most likely, it was these works that became the forerunner to the development of children's detective fiction into a separate genre. One of the first to work in this genre was the English writer Enid Mary Blyton, the author of the most famous series of 15 books “The Five Find-Outers”. Books in this series were published from 1941 to 1960. During these same years, many other authors appeared in the USA and Western Europe, writing detective stories for children in series. Since the late nineties, this genre has taken shape in Russia, giving rise to its own authors and heroes.

No matter in which country such works were written, we find much in common in them. In almost all books, the action takes place in real cities and countries; the names of streets and landmarks are not fictitious. In Enid Blyton's books, the action takes place in the fictional town of Peterswood, but all the surrounding towns and areas are real. And Wilmer Green, and Farring, and many other cities, including London, can be found not only on the pages of books, but also on the map of Great Britain.

"So now Pip and Daisy and I are going on our bikes to Wilmer Green," said Larry. "It"s only about five miles. At least, we"ll have tea first and then go" .

"Fatty had to go and get his bicycle, and so had Bets and Pip. To her joy Bets was allowed to come, as Farring was not a great distance away. Thechildrenrodeoffgaily" .

The main character never acts alone; there is always a group of friends, a brother or sister. This is evident even from the names of the series of children's detective stories: “The Five Find-Outers” by the English writer Enid Blyton, “Company with Bolshaya Spasskaya” by Russian authors A. Ivanov, A. Ustinova, “The Hardy Boys” by the American writer Franklin Dixon.

It is also necessary to have a friend who is a police officer or a relative working in law enforcement. Heroes of children's detective stories very rarely encounter murders. If in “adult” detective stories this is almost the most observed rule of the genre, then in detective stories for children, the title most often appears in the title. "The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage", "The Mystery of the Disappearing Cat", "The Mystery of the Secret Room", "The Mystery of the Spiteful Letters", "The Mystery of the Missing Necklace", "The Mystery of the Hidden House" are the titles of books by the already mentioned writer Enid Blyton. Comparing with the titles of novels and stories, for example, by Agatha Christie - “Murder on the Links”, “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd”, “The Murder at the Vicarage”, “Murder on the Orient Express”, “Murder in Mesopotamia”, “ Murder in the Mews”, “Murder is Easy”, “And Murder is Announced” - and this is not a complete list, we can confidently say that the children's detective story is also psychological. No matter how serious the investigation, it is always presented in the form of a game, therefore, the authors have to observe some restrictions in the choice of plot, because the confrontation of children and teenagers with murder directly in real life cannot be called a game.

A children's detective story gives adults the opportunity to speak the same language as teenagers, allows them to be drawn into the world of reading and adventure, and also instills the moral values necessary for the development of a harmonious personality. It can sometimes teach, perhaps, even more than a serious book written by a recognized author. Strong friendship, the ability to work in a team, the fight between good and evil - these are the main values of a detective story written about children and for children.

2.3 Ironic detective story as a special type of genre

It is impossible to imagine the modern picture of the detective genre without the ironic detective story, perhaps the most widespread type of literature among today's readers. As an independent genre, the ironic detective story was finally formed only in the twentieth century, but almost immediately gained incredible popularity. Most likely, the basis for the birth of such a subgenre in literature was the first parodies of classic detective stories. Among the authors of literature of this kind one can find recognized classics - Mark Twain, O. Henry, James Barry. The parody detective genre is still popular today. One of the most striking examples is the work “Sherlock Holmes and All-All-All” by the Russian author Sergei Ulyev, published under the pseudonym Jack Kent. A parody of “Ten Little Indians” by Agatha Christie, which gathered ten famous detectives on an island in a castle. Irony, grotesquely depicted images and all this based on the classic English detective story.

“Ah,” Miss Marple sighed dreamily, “The old castle, the cold walls and - swamps, swamps for hundreds of miles around... What a magnificent backdrop for a murder! A prim, mysterious, purely English murder...

- Oh, Miss Marple, it's incredibly interesting when someone is constantly being killed! - Della Street exclaimed, pressing her hands to her chest.

“Of course,” said Sherlock Holmes. - Unless they kill you.

“But excuse me,” Juve intervened, waving his hands in front of his nose, “Miss Marple might not have talked about murder!”

“That’s out of the question,” Goodwin said. “I suspect that her head is full of murders.”

“Unfortunately, you are right, monsieur,” Poirot sighed. - Oh, our craving for great art..." .

However, we cannot say that before the appearance of such works, fans of the detective genre were not familiar with such a phenomenon as irony. On the contrary, in almost every author the reader finds its manifestations to one degree or another. An ironic approach to matters, sarcasm in dialogues or descriptions, even an ironic attitude of the author himself towards the main character.

In classic French detective stories, irony is almost not expressed. Perhaps this is explained by the fact that most of the detective heroes are official representatives of the law - Commissioners Juve and Maigret, detective police agent Lecoq. The authors of English-language detective novels are less biased in this matter - they easily portray the police in an unfavorable light, making fun of clients, victims or detectives. In the American detective story, irony is obvious, most often manifested in the description of the course of the investigation and in dialogues. Any work by Rex Stout is filled with caustic remarks or sarcastic epithets, which can equally belong to the main character, Nero Wolfe or his assistant Archie Goodwin, or to any other hero of the work, even if this is his only remark.

"I didn't really mind when Nero Wolfe sent me [Archie Goodwin] there. I kind of expected this. After the publicity created by the Sunday newspapers about the exhibition, it was clear that someone in our family would have to go and look at these orchids. And since Fritz Brenner cannot be separated from the kitchen for so long, and Wolf himself, as you know, is best suited by the nickname “Stationary Body”, like those bodies that are talked about in physics textbooks, it seemed that the choice will fall on me. I was chosen" .

The authors of the English classic detective story, although they do not go beyond the rules and canons of style, still use irony in its various manifestations. In the stories of the recognized classic Arthur Conan Doyle, readers feel, oddly enough, the author's ironic attitude towards his hero. Doyle himself never attached importance to his detective work as much as Holmes' admirers did. Considering his stories a kind of entertainment, he did not consider it necessary to deeply respect the famous detective, which is felt in his more later works. Since the image of Holmes was sufficiently defined from the very beginning, the author could not “destroy” it later. Sherlock Holmes is well aware of all the phenomena and things that could be useful in investigating crimes, every little thing is carefully studied. When Scotland Yard employees or Watson's companion argue whether it is worth paying so much attention to this or that piece of evidence, it turns out that the famous detective has extensive knowledge of this subject and is even the author of a number of articles, monographs or manuals. He wrote an article on types of encryption (the story “The Dancing Men”), a book on the practical breeding of bees (“The Second Spot”), a work entitled “Identification of tobacco varieties by ashes” (“The Sign of Four”), as well as a number of articles on footprints and tires, about the influence of profession on the shape of the hand and many others. Sometimes the author allows himself to express irony towards Holmes by putting it into the characters’ remarks:

"Perhaps you will explain what you are talking about.

My client grinned mischievously. - I had got into the way of supposing that you knew everything without being told, - he said" .

One can also note the similarity in the use of this technique in Agatha Christie’s series of works about Miss Marple and Gilbert Chesterton in the stories about Father Brown. The stories themselves, in terms of narrative style, comply with the rules of the detective genre, but the authors put ironic remarks in the mouths of the main characters and, most often, at the end of the work. This final remark with some subtext often represents the conclusion or the main artistic idea of the entire work.

"The judge leaned back in his chair with a luxuriance in which it was hard to separate the cynicism and the admiration. "And can you tell us why," he asked, "you should know your own figure in a looking-glass, when don't two such distinguished men?"

Father Brown blinked even more painfully than before; then he stammered: "Really, my lord, I don’t know unless it’s because I don’t look at it so often" .

"Why do you say, "called himself the gardener," Aunt Jane?" asked Raymond curiously.

"Well, he can"t have been a real gardener, can he?" said Miss Marple."Gardeners don"t work on Whit Monday. Everybody knows that." She smiled and folded up her knitting. "It was really that little fact that put me on the right scent," she said. She looked across at Raymond. "When you are a householder, dear, and have a garden of your own, you will know these little things" .

Subsequently, as noted above, all these ironic intentions and allusions in classic detective stories formed into a separate genre, which became extremely popular in almost every country. An interesting fact is that in Russia the majority of authors writing in the ironic detective genre are women; in England, the name Georgette Heyer is on the list of founders of this trend, while in France ironic detective stories written woman's hand, simply no.

Researchers and theorists of the genre believe that the ironic detective story is a phenomenon of mass literature and cannot be classified as a serious work, and in some ways they are right. In works of this genre, the entertainment function comes first. Subtle humor, “light” dialogues and atypical main characters allow you to escape from reality for a while, without delving into what the author wanted to convey and how deeply psychological his images are. Then, I think, comes the cognitive function - the more information in life that can be gleaned from a detective story, and the more diverse this information is, the more valuable the work itself. In this regard, modern ironic detective stories are superior to classic ones, since the main characters are ordinary people who are not associated with the work of official representatives of the law. And finally, the third function is moral. Depiction of crime, violence, bloodshed automatically deprives the author of the right to the high title of writer. Unfortunately, such scenes are not uncommon in modern detective stories. However, the harmonious combination of all three functions gives rise to a high-level work, which cannot be called just entertaining reading aimed at the mass reader. If we talk about modern English-language ironic detective stories, we can single out several writers who managed to create just such works. These are English writers Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie and their American colleague Lawrence Block. The works of these authors are distinguished by the embodiment of all functions, multiplied by a humorous style. Also, despite the different mentalities of the authors, their books have a lot in common:

1) each novel is based on a detective plot, built according to a certain scheme, aimed at creating a comic effect;

2) unlucky heroes, as a rule, find themselves in an unusual, alien environment and are forced to act in a world completely incomprehensible to them;

3) the absurdity of the situation, the complete incompatibility of the main characters with the circumstances in which they have to act by chance, give rise to a lot of misunderstandings and funny scenes; the text is presented in the form of an extended monologue of the main character, who seems to be talking with the readers, talking about his adventures, quoting the funny opinions of his companions, often interrupting the flow of the story to speculate about life, laughing with the readers at the absurdity of various situations; lament the sad fate of people living in a poorly organized world;

4) eloquent titles of books that are built on certain models and are based on a language game;

5) all novels certainly have a happy ending.

Thus, taking into account the above, we can conclude that the genre of the ironic and parody detective story appeared thanks to the rules and canons of the classic detective story. It was precisely the framework within which the classics of the genre tried to fit their works that gave rise to the desire to “liberate” detective novels and stories, making them more accessible to most readers.

2.4 Implementation of rules in various types of detective stories.

As already noted in the first chapter of this work, the detective genre has a set of different rules and canons, but not all of them are implemented in the works. As a clear example, we have compiled a table with different types of detective stories to demonstrate the presence or absence of one or another rule of the genre in them. For comparison, we took such types of detective stories as classic English, ironic, children's and “cool” American, since, in our opinion, these types more fully reflect genre diversity and, in some senses, even contradict each other.

Table 1 - Implementation of the rules of the genre in different types of detective works

Detective type/rule number
Classic English
Ironic

"Cool" American

1) It is necessary to provide the reader with equal opportunities to unravel the mysteries as the detective, for which purpose it is necessary to clearly and accurately report all incriminating traces.

2) A detective story cannot lack a detective who methodically searches for incriminating evidence, as a result of which he comes to a solution to the riddle. As can be seen from the table, the first two rules are fully implemented in every type of detective story, so they can be called fundamental for any work of this genre.

3) The obligatory crime in a detective story is murder. This rule applies not only to the genre of the “cool” American detective story, but also to the ironic one. As an example, we can cite the works of D. Hammett; one of the collections of stories is called “The Murders of Dashiell Hammett.” Perhaps the code of the American detective story, which is often equated with the action film, does not allow authors to abandon the most common theme in the detective novel. Since the ironic detective story belongs to the mass form of literature, the authors use all means to hold the attention of readers longer. In the modern world, the most attractive and exciting crime for a detective lover remains murder. In a classic detective story, writers are more loyal to this rule. Having studied all of Conan Doyle's works about Sherlock Holmes, we found that out of fifty-six short stories and four novellas, only twenty-one works describe murder, while the rest were evenly distributed among crimes such as fraud, theft and robbery, forgery and criminal intent. for inheritances. In a children's detective story, the name itself makes it clear that it is too early to involve young readers in this area of the detective world, therefore the most serious offense in such detective stories can only be kidnapping, but not deprivation of life.

4) There can only be one detective in a story - the reader cannot compete with three or four members of a relay team at once. From the proposed table it becomes clear that the authors of detective stories for adults adhere to this law. In a children's detective story, most often the investigation is carried out by a group of friends consisting of at least 3-4 people. Moreover, each hero has its own characteristics and distinctive features. And all of them together make it possible for a group of children to uncover the criminal plans of scammers, which adults cannot always cope with. For example, let’s look at the titles of series of famous children’s detective stories: “The Five Find-Outers” by the English writer Enid Blyton, “Company with Bolshaya Spasskaya” by Russian authors A. Ivanov, A. Ustinova, “The Hardy Boys” by the American writer Franklin Dixon.

5) Secret or criminal communities have no place in a detective story. In a classic detective story, this rule is not always followed. The already mentioned Conan Doyle’s story “The Five Pips of Orange” describes the activities of the Ku Klux Klan, and also in the stories “A Study in Scarlet” and “The Valley of Terror” the reader encounters a description of the actions of Masonic organizations. In a children's detective story, young detectives may well encounter the activities of a criminal gang or group.

6) The criminal should be someone mentioned at the beginning of the novel, but it should not be a person whose train of thought the reader was allowed to follow. This rule applies only to the classic detective story. The most striking example is the works of Agatha Christie from the Miss Marple series. However, the second part of the rule, concerning the inability to follow the criminal’s train of thought, is implemented in all types of detective stories.

7) The detective’s stupid friend, Watson in one guise or another, should not hide any of the considerations that come to his mind; in his mental abilities he should be slightly inferior - but only slightly - to the average reader. This law of the genre is again characteristic only of examples of the classic detective story, since it is its feature. It is in the classic detective story that there is a pair conventionally called “Holmes-Watson”; in other types, this rule cannot be implemented.

Thus, having compared the results obtained from the study of the stated types of detective stories, we came to the conclusion that the detective genre in literature is still a developing and changing genre, but it retains the features and characteristics of classical examples and some canons.

Conclusion

This work is devoted to the consideration of the features of the detective genre in English-language literature using the example of works by English and American authors.

To achieve this goal, in the first chapter of our study, we covered the detailed history of the genre and its development from its inception to the present day. The second chapter presents the results of studies of English-language detective stories to identify genre features in them. The main criterion for selecting works for our study were the rules and canons of the genre developed by Stephen Van Dyne and Ronald Knox. Their direct implementation in works is presented in one of the paragraphs in the form of a table.

We analyzed more than a hundred detective stories, novels and short stories by English-language authors in order to present the most accurate picture of the implementation of genre features in them.

In the course of our research, we came to the conclusion that an element of national difference also manifests itself in detective literature, therefore American and English authors present each of the features of the genre differently. In this work, more attention is paid to such features as the implementation of the image of a detective pair - a detective - his companion, the expression of intrigue and irony in a detective story, and the peculiarities of the two-story structure of the work. We also separately examined special types of detective stories - children's detective stories and ironic detective stories - and highlighted their features.

A comparative analysis of American and English detective works made it possible to clearly show that the code of the English detective novel is the richest and most closed. The American detective has weaker schemes. Today, the detective novel can confidently be considered a thriving literary industry. The reason for the success and popularity of the detective genre is that the reader seeks in a detective story not only reinforcement of ideas about the rational structure of the world around him, but also the experience of his sense of insecurity in it.

Thus, in our work, we tried to more thoroughly examine the features of English-language detective stories, having simultaneously examined the works of English and American authors, to highlight similar features and differences, and also to identify the implementation of the rules of the detective genre in its different types.

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The detective film genre in its purest form many years ago successfully moved to television, where it is now presented in the form of crime series (CSI, Criminal Minds, Elementary). In feature cinema, the detective story has changed significantly, as a result of mixing several genres into one coherent plot. Detective thriller, detective thriller, detective parody. It is this mixing of genres that keeps the viewer glued to the screen.

Puzzles, sophisticated crimes, unexpected turns of events, charismatic protagonists and brilliant criminals. It is the skillful combination of all these elements that creates a masterpiece of a detective thriller that captivates the viewer from the first second until the final credits appear.

I suggest watching the 8 best detective films with a tense plot.

1. True Detective

Year: 2014
Actors: Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Monaghan

This is, without exaggeration, the best mini-series of recent years, created by the popular American television channel HBO, in the style of a neo-noir detective with thriller elements. The creators of the project managed to get brilliant film actors into their group - Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, who created complex and fascinating characters on the screen. The series received not only rave reviews from viewers, but also recognition from film critics around the world.

The detective story takes place in 1995, Louisiana, where a sophisticated maniac kills girls and creates a kind of decoration around their bodies, a kind of message. Two detectives assigned to investigate catch the killer, but are killed during the arrest. The case is closed. At the same time, the plot is mixed with events that take place 17 years later. What happened to detectives and their careers? And why did the police again turn to the case of the sophisticated maniac of 1995? This is not only the story of one investigation, but also the story of several destinies, vital and realistic.

“True Detective” is one of the few films that has a fascinating atmosphere, unique flavor and great music.

2. Seven

Year: 1995
Actors: Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Gwyneth Paltrow

The famous psychological detective film from American director David Fincher, which received 19 awards at various film festivals. From the first minute, the film, with its tense atmosphere, introduces the viewer into a state in which he seems to become an accomplice in all events.

Actions take place over the course of just seven days, during which an old detective (Freeman) and his young partner (Pitt) investigate the series mysterious murders. Every day they find the body of a man who was punished by a maniac for one of the deadly sins, imagining himself to be a messenger of God. The killer defies the police without fear of punishment. And their game becomes more and more dangerous every day.

The entire film was shot with dim lighting, dark colors, and dirty, shabby city settings to emphasize the overall depressive atmosphere. Such an atmosphere, deeply psychological characters and an impressive ending have made the film “Sem” one of the best detective stories in world cinema for twenty years now.

3. Insomnia

Year: 2002
Actors: Al Pacino, Martin Donovan, Robin Williams, Paul Dooley, Hilary Swank

American film by famous director Christopher Nolan (“The Dark Knight”, “Inception”). It combines not only an exciting plot, a tense atmosphere of a detective thriller, but also excellent acting.

The plot centers on successful detective Dormer from California (Pacino), who is forced to travel to Alaska to investigate the seemingly ordinary murder of a girl due to unrequited love. But the detective immediately sees that everything is not as simple as it seems, and the real killer skillfully deceives everyone. Dormer sleeps poorly due to the polar night, and he is not relieved of psychological stress due to the investigation. And during his arrest, he accidentally kills his partner. Now Dormer, like the killer, is trying to cover his tracks, and he has his own reasons for this...

Despite the fact that “Insomnia” is a remake of the film of the same name, it turned out to be much more successful and brighter than its predecessor. Thanks to the gloomy atmosphere, the viewer begins to feel the same psychological pressure as Detective Dormer. The director managed to find a fine line from which the viewer seems to be a participant in all the events.

4. Simulator

Year: 1995
Actors: Sigourney Weaver, Holly Hunter, Dermot Mulroney, Harry Connick Jr.

An American detective story with frightening music that supports the atmosphere of an action-packed thriller.
The main character is a doctor of criminal psychology, Hudson (Weaver), who understands the motives and behavior of serial killers. She was once attacked by a maniac, after which, due to agoraphobia, she did not leave her apartment for many years. She is approached by detectives who are investigating a series of murders. Psychologically, Hudson is exhausted and intimidated, and she does not want to return to murder work. Until the moment she realizes that the criminal is exactly copying all the crimes that she once described in her analytical book.

Sigourney Weaver is the star of psychological thrillers with a detective plot. The film with her participation, without large-scale decorations and a special “underwater plot,” still keeps the viewer glued to the screen.

5. Red Dragon

Year: 2002
Actors: Anthony Hopkins, Edward Norton, Ralph Fiennes, Harvey Keitel

The film is the prequel to the famous detective thriller “The Silence of the Lambs”, based on the book of the same name by Thomas Harris about the life of the greatest killer of all time – Hannibal Lecter. The film "Red Dragon" is not as famous as its next part, but no less action-packed.

Detective Will Graham (Norton) manages to suspect Hannibal Lecter (Hopkins) of a series of brutal murders and puts him behind bars. The detective retires and lives quietly with his family until he is approached by the FBI to take control of the investigation into a series of unusual murders. Gremm turns to Lector for help, as the newly minted maniac writes letters of admiration to Hannibal. It seems to the police that they have everything under control and will soon catch the killer. But they do not suspect that they are becoming victims of a well-planned game where someone else dictates the rules...

6. Zodiac

Year: 2007
Actors: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr.

Another detective film from the master of tense thrillers, David Fincher. The film is based on the real events of the investigation into the brutal murders of the most famous maniac of the last century, the Zodiac, who was never caught. He operated in San Francisco for 12 years, during which he killed 37 people. At the same time, he regularly sent confusing messages to the police through newspapers, which were never fully deciphered.

The film tells two parallel stories: the crimes of the Zodiac and the police investigation. For the detective (Gyllenhaal) who worked on the killer's case, the investigation becomes a matter of life. He understands that the police imprisoned an innocent man, and even after the crimes stop, he continues to look for evidence. He finds the Zodiac's only surviving victim who can testify in his case, and gets incredibly close to the Zodiac...

The film keeps you in suspense from the beginning to the very end. The viewer, although initially knowing the ending, still empathizes with the characters and hopes for a good ending.

7. Captives

Year: 2013
Actors: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal

The film "Prisoners" is an example of a quality detective suspense film. Critics noted the excellent performance of Jake Gyllenhaal and the well-structured plot, which gradually increases the tension around the events.

The plot is based on the kidnapping of two little girls on Thanksgiving Day. The police quickly apprehend a suspect, a mentally retarded guy named Alex, who was at the crime scene shortly before the abduction. Due to lack of evidence, he is released. The father of one of the girls (Jackman) is sure that the guy is still involved in the kidnapping. He begins to conduct his own investigation, kidnaps the young man and brutally tortures him in order to find his daughter. Due to Alex's disappearance, the police begin to look for the kidnapper. And so the desperate father becomes a criminal...

Not in the film huge amount events that replace each other every minute. The entire atmosphere in it is created by the main characters, their experiences, character traits and deep psychologism.

8. Who are you, Mr. Brooks?

Year: 2007
Actors: Kevin Costner, William Hurt, Demi Moore

"Who are you, Mr. Brooks?" is a thriller and psychological drama in one with Kevin Costner in the title role.

The plot centers on successful businessman and exemplary family man Earl Brooks (Costner). He does charity work, takes care of his daughter and wife, and kills people in his free time. For several years he struggled with his inner demons until he committed a crime again. Due to a small oversight in his case, a witness has appeared who does not demand money, but simply wants to be present at the next murder. At this time, detectives are actively investigating, getting closer and closer to Brooks. And when he decides to quit his unusual hobby, his daughter is accused of murder. Brooks is obliged to save the girl and save his family, but to do this he will have to commit one last crime.

Although the film was not widely popular, it is an example of a good psychological detective story that is worth watching in your free time.

Enjoy watching!