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32 Reading Scooby Doo for grown-ups Read the text about pet detectives in fiction. First decide whether the statements (1–8) are true (T) or false (F) and put a cross ( ) in the correct box. Then identify the sentence in the text which supports your decision. Write the first four words of this sentence in the space provided. There may be more than one answer; write down only one. The first one (0) has been done for you. 12 Scooby Doo for grown-ups Apart from the Sherlock Holmes mystery e Hound of the Baskervilles, pets have never been more than occasional bit-part players in British crime –ction. e same cannot be said about America, where a whole genre of literature features dogs and cats playing a central role in solving crimes. e American love a†air with dog detectives goes back to screen characters like Lassie and Scooby Doo, but pet-mystery publishing has really taken o† in the last 20 years. Millions of pet-mysteries have been sold in America as part of the so-called ‘cozies’ genre. ese are based on the English literary tradition of genteel murders in a small-town setting, such as those by Agatha Christie in which the emphasis is on puzzle- solving rather than the sex, violence and suspense found in dark psychological thrillers also currently popular. e amateur detective, who is usually a middle-aged woman, gets help from her pets, of- ten cats or dogs but also other domestic animals, to unmask the wrongdoer. Best-selling American pet mysteries include the Mrs Murphy series by Rita Mae Brown, who has a talking cat called Sneaky Pie Brown. Another favourite is Spencer Quinn, whose Chet and Bernie series features a down-on-his-luck private investigator. e real star, however, is his dog. ere are European examples too. A novel by a German writer, Leonie Swann, in which the murder of an Irish shepherd is solved by his £ock of sheep, became an interna- tional bestseller. Peter Cannon, senior reviews editor at the trade publication Publishers Weekly in New York, was surprised that the shelves of British book- shops were not creaking with the weight of pet mysteries. “I always think of the English as being more animal loving than the Americans, but maybe they never thought animals could solve mysteries,” he said. He did acknowledge however that despite their enormous popularity among American readers, pet mysteries were dismissed by serious students of crime –ction. “Many of these people look down on them as just ‘people and fur’,” he said. Another reviewer of crime –ction said he was aware of the pet-mystery genre but had no intention of ever actually reading anything from it. Now publishing experts are convinced that the pet detective phenomenon is on its way across the Atlantic to Europe and an established British writer has been selected to enter the multi-million dollar US ‘pet-mystery’ market. Annie Dalton, already a prizewinning author of books for children and teenagers, has been commissioned to write her –rst titles for adults with two ‘dog-walking’ novels for the American market. In e White Shepherd dog owner Anne Hopkins and her rescue German shepherd Bonnie are walking through an Oxford meadow when they discover the body of Naomi Evans, who had been researching Bonnie’s past. When the police decide Evans was the victim of a serial killer, Hopkins teams up with other dog-walkers to uncover the truth and prove them wrong. It is a double mystery: the identity of the killer and Bonnie’s history before arriving at a dog rescue centre. Dalton deliberately set her novel in Oxford to tap into the American love of the Inspector Morse television series. e novel has already notched up good sales –gures since its publication in the UK. It remains to be seen if will conquer the US market. Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv