What is an ironic detective? Books of this genre are familiar to all categories of readers, only everyone has different attitudes towards them. Someone considers the ironic detective literary garbage, someone is happy to buy all the new items, while the majority is quite indifferent. And few people know that this genre appeared less than 100 years ago, and it has a specific "literary mother" - John Khmelevskaya.
Strictly speaking, the famous Polish writer was not at all the creator of a new group of literary works. Along with the first stories of Khmelevskaya, ironic detectives of such authors as Gaston Leroux (France), Georgette Heyer (Great Britain) and Jene Reito (Hungary) appeared, so this genre was created by joint efforts. But it was Mrs. John the first who won the love of Russian readers, so that in our country there was a consensus: Khmelevskaya was the first, and the rest only followed in her footsteps. It is difficult to say how true this is: each author has his own style, so you cannot blame someone for rude imitation. Nevertheless, ironic detectives are most often written according to a single template, which can be clearly seen in the work of any writer.
Classic components of an ironic detective:
1. Name. This is the most noticeable detail for the buyer, so it is always catchy, noticeable, with a bit of humor or satire, and most often is a distorted speech cliche. Example: “A Monster Without a Beauty,” “Special Purpose Friend,” “Ladies Kill Knights.”
2. The image of the main character. In an ironic detective, this is usually an ugly, miserable, woman (girl) who always finds herself in ridiculous situations . Sometimes asexual. In the end, the “stupid” heroine will certainly outwit all the criminals, find happiness in her personal life and automatically receive empathy from the reader, since he himself has long guessed who the main criminal is.
3. One-sided characters: either bad or good. And the world is appropriate: no halftones, all black or white.
After the mistress of John, ironic detectives were written by many authors. In our country, the peak of popularity of the genre came in the 90s of the last century, when the shelves were actually littered with inexpensive paperback books that diverged like hot cakes. And, most interestingly, most of this popularity belonged to only one name - Daria Dontsova. The ironic detective performed by this writer is still the same mixture of classical components. Why are her books used and still enjoy such success? Indeed, at the same time, an avalanche of criticism fell on Dontsova: books are mediocre, the author does not shine with the mind, orders detectives from "literary blacks" - this is only part of the accusations. The writer herself answered the question about success, and, according to Dontsova, she only writes fairy tales for adults, which they lack so much in real life. As for the other accusations, everything is obvious here: well, not all writers can create, like Tolstoy or Dostoevsky. Moreover, they do not want and should not. Books should be different for all categories of readers, and while there is someone who prefers ironic detectives to any other genre, there will always be a writer who will create them.