Thèse (M.A.)--Université Laval, 1997. / Comprend des réf. bibliogr.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2008. / Title from title screen (site viewed Mar. 5, 2009). PDF text: 185 p. ; 603 Kb. UMI publication number: AAT 3297712. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.

In my study I analyse Reijo Mäki’s four books Pimeyden tango (1997), Pahan suudelma (1998), Keltainen leski (1999) and Black Jack (2003).  I’m interested whether Mäki as a writer belongs to traditional Finnish prose which started from Aleksis Kivi than genre of crime literature. After Kai Laitinen humour, nature and democracy are typical to Finnish literature tradition.  Mäki’s milieu descriptions are closer to the Finnish literary tradition. Through nature the characters mirror their emotions, feelings and events. The environment is not only seen, but it is also smelled, touched and heard. Through the marks of the nature characters give right as well as misleading clues. It is particularly characteristic to the Finnish literary tradition to describe division of life, social status and the freedom and lack of it through weather, which is not typical to the crime literature.  Also Mäki’s characters are democratic and everyday and strongly individualistic and anti-social despite of person’s social standing.  Laitinen’s point of view is that in the Finnish literary tradition equality is only between men. In Mäki’s fiction women characters are narrow and they are only seen how they look. Mäki represents the modern criminal literature in which are characteristics of puzzle, hard-boiled and police novels. Unlike hardboiled detective stories his books are full of verbal descriptions. In conclusion Mäki’s books clearly represent the Finnish literary tradition.

In this dissertation Lebopa' s two short stories entitled Ntlo ya monna yo mongwe and Bomahlwabadibona are compared with each other. Groenewald is the first person to have pointed out the importance of these two detective short stories. By doing this he also pointed out the importance of Lebopa as a Sepedi author. The named two short stories have never been examined comprehensively. It was therefore decided that they would be compared to each other in this study. The study begins with a description of the concept 'detective story'. Stewart (1980: 12) states that this type of story deals with an investigator who tries to unravel a mystery. The Boileau - Narcejac and Groenewald classifications of these types of stories also receive attention. The Groenewald classification is used in this dissertation. Strachan and Mojalefa's opinion that a literary work consists of three levels forms the basis of the model used to analyse the short stories. Mojalefa refers to these three levels as 'content level', 'structure level' and 'style level'. 'Topic' and 'theme' are two basic concepts in this investigation. 'Topic' is relevant on a content level while 'theme' is important on a structure level'. The two stories were not analysed stylistically. The content of a text consists of four elements, namely characters, events, time and space, and the study of content concentrates on these four elements. Two main figures who are involved in a conflict with each other are identified in the investigation. The events are divided into three categories. The first category contains basic events and is exclusively determined by the topic. The second and third categories respectively contain relevant and coincidental events. The 'time' concept is subdivided into 'point of time' and 'lapse of time'. 'Place' includes amongst other things, 'geographic', 'socio-cultural' and 'symbolic place'. The analysis of the structural level relies heavily on the 'mini-framework' concept which involves the microstructure of a work. Attention is devoted to the title. Hereafter the investigation focused on the different parts of the structure i.e. the exposition, the development, the climax and the resolution. The structural analysis concentrates mainly on the author's use of literary techniques. The concept 'technique' is defined and the following techniques from Ntlo ya monna yo mongwe and Bomahlwabadibona are identified and discussed: repetition, shifting, frequency, dramatic irony, omission, focus, complication and deceit. The investigation is a functional analysis and not a taxonomic one, which means that the ways in which the techniques function also receive attention. The comparison between the two short stories reveals that they belong to two different kinds of detective stories. In Ntlo ya monna yo mongwe the unravelling of the mystery receive the most attention. In Bomahlwabadibona those events which gradually expose the cruelty of the antagonist and which deal with his punishment are most prominent. This is in accordance with Dresden and Vestdijk's description of the English and American detective story respectively. The positions of Ntlo ya monna yo mongwe and Bomahlwabadibona in relation to the rest of the Sepedi narrative genre is then precisely indicated. The concluding chapter is a summary. At the end of this chapter a brief allusion is made to Dresden and Vestdijk's opinion that the detective story is a modern fairytale. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / African Languages / unrestricted

This study b·aces the development of the Shona clctective story as a genre different from rhe mainstream Shona novel. The Shona detective story emerges from the non-detective traditional folktale and develops into rhree types, namely, the rudimentary form. the pure 'whoduniC, and the detectivethriller. An attempt is made to show that when the Shona detective story first appeared it was quite elementary and showed signs of me influence of Shona traditional folklore. But later on authors developed the detective narrative into pure 'whodunits' and detective-mrillers which showed influence of Western ftlms and English detective stories. The study ends with the argument that although at its highest level of development the Shona detective story manifests characteristics that make it a unique genre different from other Shona novels its treatment of female characters is not very different from their treatment in the mainstream Shona novel. / African Languages / M.A. (African Languages)

This study b·aces the development of the Shona clctective story as a genre different from rhe mainstream Shona novel. The Shona detective story emerges from the non-detective traditional folktale and develops into rhree types, namely, the rudimentary form. the pure 'whoduniC, and the detectivethriller. An attempt is made to show that when the Shona detective story first appeared it was quite elementary and showed signs of me influence of Shona traditional folklore. But later on authors developed the detective narrative into pure 'whodunits' and detective-mrillers which showed influence of Western ftlms and English detective stories. The study ends with the argument that although at its highest level of development the Shona detective story manifests characteristics that make it a unique genre different from other Shona novels its treatment of female characters is not very different from their treatment in the mainstream Shona novel. / African Languages / M.A. (African Languages)

Sixties was a special period in the history of Czech literature, because during these years popular literature (especially the detective stories) was written as an artistic literature. During the sixties a lot of detective novels with artistic value were written. In the past (especially during the fifties), vacation literature was considered bad. In the first half of the sixties mainly socialist detective stories were written. There were important political opinions of the author. Socialist authors celebrated police work. In the late sixties detective stories under the Anglo-Saxon tradition were written. For authors, it was important to respect the rules of writing crime fiction. They thought that crime novels people read just for fun. At the end of the sixties detective stories have never had such a good position in the literature. KEYWORDS Czech literature in sixties, vacation literature, detective novel, Anglo-Saxon detective novel, socialist detective novel.

The diploma thesis deals with the analysis of particular detective and Gothic elements in Christopher Pike's adventurous series Remember Me. The main aim of the thesis is to analyse themes and motifs of Pike's work with respect to the Gothic tradition and the development of detective prose. The thesis is formally divided into theoretical and practical parts. The theoretical chapter is devoted to the genre of the detective and Gothic literature, as well as metaphysical detective story. The theoretical part is followed by the practical analysis of selected Pike's works. The practical analysis involves the characteristics of the main protagonists and the influence of horror and metaphysical detective elements on the search of individual identity.

Despite the great popularity and increased prestige of classic detective fiction, as well as the American hard-boiled novel, since their introduction in the nineteenth century many readers and authors have perceived them as genres incompatible with Latin American realities. The inherent conventions of the whodunit, the presence of a detective whose legitimacy is never in doubt, and its conservative ideology, which presupposed the punishment of criminality and the reestablishment of the status quo, were incongruous in societies in which people had no faith in justice. The genre, then, was regarded as unrealistic for third world countries. In this way, in order to be plausible, the detective novel in Latin America needed a different approach. In broad terms, these pages propose the emergence of a new genre that can be observed in the works of contemporary authors such as Vicente Leñero's Los albañiles (1963), Ricardo Piglia's Nombre falso (1975), Jorge Ibargüengoitia's Las muertas (1977) and, most notably, in Roberto Bolaño's Los detectives salvajes (1998), which I consider the most prominent and complex example of this type. The present study examines how this innovative Spanish American detective fiction incorporates and restates some of the structures and conventions of the hard-boiled novel and shares some features of contemporary Spanish American fiction, while developing its own characteristics in contrast with both detective fiction schools. Due to the necessity of the native writers to adopt, formally and thematically, alternative approaches when creating credible detective stories, I have named this emergent genre: Spanish American alternative detective fiction. / text

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Universitaire Instelling Antwerpen, 2001. / UMI no. 3030090. Includes bibliographical references (p. 341-373).