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French & Reading: A Student's Guide to Francophone Literature & Language Learning

Romans Policiers: French True Crime & Mystery

France has a long literary tradition of crime novels—one that has crossed the oceans. Emile Gaboriau the "père du roman policier" was said to inspire the famous Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who authored Sherlock Holmes. And Gaboriau himself was inspired by American poet Edgar Allan Poe. From the world-renowned novels of George Simenon, to the recent hit series remake of Maurice Leblanc's Arsène Lupin, crime fiction in France has met with longstanding commercial success and continues to captivate thrill-seeking readers in France and abroad. The selection below contains some of the most famous works of French crime fiction.

For more selections use the following Library of Congress Subject Headings:

Detective and mystery stories, French--History and criticism
 

The following titles link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to additional online content are included when available.