One of the many literary genres available is mystery and crime. These stories normally focus on a murder and the investigation to find out who the murderer is. Along history, the British have proved to master these type of literature, and there are many mystery and crime stories which have been written by authors from the UK.
- Sherlock Holmes: There is probably no one in the world who hasn't heard of this English detective. This Londoner, who lives on Baker St, is famous for smoking his pipe, looking through his magnifying glass and, above all, resolving crimes together with his friend and faithful helper, Dr. Watson. Holmes is the main character of a series of novels and short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle around late 19th c. and early 20th c. Sherlock Holmes became such a powerful character at that time that Doyle started to feel jealous of his own creation, and decided to kill him in one of his stories, to keep on writing about something else. However, Holmes fans complained after his unexpected death and criticised Doyle for his decision. Then, the writer decided to bring his famous character back to life in his next story, understanding no one could ever kill Sherlock Holmes, not even his creator. Today, Sherlock Holmes is a universal character, probably the best known detective in the whole world. The book to you have read on the holidays is actually a compilation of several Sherlock Holmes stories, which I'm sure you enjoyed.
- Agatha Christie: Known as the Queen of Crime, this prolific English author wrote mystery and crime stories almost along 3 entire quarters of 20th century. No wonder why she was labelled as the Queen of Crime! Her stories are unique, with such degree of suspense and mystery that they keep you hooked on them until you finish reading and find out who the murderer was. They're also easy to read, since they tend to follow the same pattern: a murder, an investigator looking for clues and, finally, a shocking discovery of who committed the murder, normally the person no one could ever suspect of. There are two famous characters in Christie's novels: Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, who always end up resolving the crimes. They were quite different from each other, since while Poirot was a proud Belgian detective, Marple was an apparently fragile elderly lady, but so clever that she could resolve any crime, surprising all characters in the story, including the police. The most famous works by Agatha Christie are Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile and Ten Little Niggers.
If you'd like to know more about Agatha Christie, click on this link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie
By the way, have you watched the BBC series Sherlock? It's a modern reinvention of Sherlock Holmes stories and it's been a huge success all over the world. I'd like you to watch the video a this girl speaking about the series and then, I'll ask you a few questions:
10 Reasons to watch BBC Sherlock
Now, if you haven't watched the series, would you like to watch it? Why/why not? Why don't you try watching it in English with subtitles? Did you find any crime vocabulary on the previous video? You can ask all these questions on our Google Classroom group.
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