The central theme of the detective story is the crime, the criminal act that breaks the social order and violates the rules of the society to which the perpetrator of this deviant behaviour belongs: most of the time the person responsible is unknown and order is restored when an agent of the law, a lawyer, a private detective or the police, manages to unravel the web of wrongdoing. The typology of the detective novel was defined by Tzvetan Todorov in terms that can be transposed without difficulty to the typology of its cinematic counterpart:1 there is, for example, the “enigma film”, in which the story of the crime pre-exists the narrative unfolding and the characters, more than acting, communicate information useful to the investigation: see Rebecca (1940), by A. Hitchcock. The second type of narrative indicated by Todorov corresponds to “film noir”, in which the story of the crime interpenetrates with that of the investigation: there is no pre-existing crime and the investigations begin only when it occurs, which can naturally be repeated and put the life of one or several characters at risk: see Strangers on a Train, also by A. Hitchcock. The third type, to which Todorov gives the designation of “suspense novel”, fuses the two types and is, effectively, also in cinema, the most frequent: the crime precedes the account, as in the “enigma”, but there are other crimes that accompany the course of the investigation, as in the “noir”, and the first concern of the narration has less to do with the premises, which are, after all, explained, than with the events that unfold before the viewer's eyes: see The Maltese Falcon, adaptation of the masterful novel of the same name by D. Hammett, or The Big Sleep, adaptation of the novel of the same name by R. Chandler, two of the three most brilliant exponents of the classic “roman noir” (the third is Ross McDonald). Learn more HERE. Information: 214 815 660 and [email protected]. Organisation: Fundação D. Luís I, with the support of the Câmara Municipal de Cascais.