Oxford University Press



1 Read the text. Match these slang expressions (1–4) to their meanings (a–d).

1 red herring a an exciting, unfinished part of a story

2 cliff-hanger b a cheap Victorian paperback book

3 yellowback c a murder mystery story

4 whodunnit d a piece of information that makes you reach the wrong conclusion

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2 Read the text again. For the questions (1–6) choose the correct sentence (a–g) for each space. There is one sentence that you don’t need to use.

a The popularity of crime fiction grew in Victorian times, thanks to the invention of the cheap paperback book.

b A detective has to find out who is actually responsible for the crime.

c The American detective story did not really develop until the 1940s.

d Fifty-six Sherlock Holmes stories were published in magazine and book format from 1891 to 1927.

e The early novels of Wilkie Collins were originally published in weekly chapters in magazines.

f Readers are more interested these days in exploring their motives and their personal problems than in guessing ‘whodunnit’.

g The plot of this Victorian thriller involves the theft of a large Indian diamond and the race to identify the thief.

1 Read about three young people and their businesses and complete the summaries with the names of the correct people.

1 got a lot of orders for a product, but couldn’t make them fast enough.

2 created a product that was too similar to others already in the market.

3 has got a successful business that doesn’t cost very much.

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2 Read the text again. Which person would say these things? Write R (Robbie), A (Andy) or M (Melanie):

1 ‘I do boring jobs for people who have to work all the time.’ 

2 ‘I’ve got lots of clients.’

3 ‘I should have asked someone to lend me some money for my business.’

4 ‘I wish my business idea had been more original.’

5 ‘I might start my business again in the future.’

6 ‘I should have started my business earlier.’

7 ‘My business would have made a profit if I’d managed it better.’

8 ‘I had too much competition.’

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BRITISH CRIME FICTION

Crime novels have been an important part of British literary culture since the 1800s. The first British crime novel is often considered to be Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone, published in 1868. 1

If The Moonstone hadn’t been written, the English crime novel might never have developed as a genre. The Moonstone introduced the classic ingredients of this type of fiction: the English country house setting, the large number of suspects, the useless local police, and a plot surprise at the end. It also introduced the idea of ‘red herrings’ – false clues inserted into the story deliberately to confuse the reader.

2 These chapters had ‘cliff-hanger’ endings – exciting final sections that made the readers desperate to read the next part of the story. Wilkie Collins admitted that he wanted to make his readers laugh, cry… and wait!

3 ‘Yellowbacks’, printed on cheap paper with yellow covers, often contained dramatic crime stories. They were sold at railway stations to entertain Victorian readers on train journeys.

In 1887, the Scottish author Arthur Conan Doyle published a crime novel, A Study in Scarlet, introducing one of the world’s most famous detectives, Sherlock Holmes. 4 Holmes’s cool, logical deduction, his use of forensic science and his relationship with his loyal, but less intelligent, assistant Dr Watson have been imitated many times in other detective stories.

The 1920s and 30s are known as the ‘Golden Age’ of English detective fiction. The most famous writer of this genre is Agatha Christie, who made the ‘whodunnit’ popular. A whodunnit (= ‘who has done it?’) is a literary puzzle in which someone is killed, and a number of people are suspected of being the murderer.

5 Christie’s most popular detectives are the Belgian Hercule Poirot and the amateur, elderly Miss Marple.

In modern crime fiction, however, the psychology of the criminals and the detectives is usually given much more importance than the plot. 6

THREE BUSINESS STORIES

Robbie

‘I designed a homework app for smartphones last year. Whenever students were given homework, they were supposed to enter the details into an organiser, with the date that the homework had to be done by. Later, the students were reminded to do the work. It was a good app, but unfortunately I didn’t do enough market research before I launched it. I should have realised that there’s a big demand for apps like that – so naturally I had loads of competitors! Hardly anyone bought my app. If I’d known how many similar apps there were, I would have designed something completely different. I wasted a lot of my time and I feel annoyed and a bit embarrassed. I wish I’d researched the market properly.’

Andy

‘I live in London, where lots of people live busy, stressful lives at top speed – luckily for me! My friend and I have got a business called Helping Hands. Basically, we’re paid by busy business people to do all the little personal jobs that they haven’t got time for – things like collecting packages, taking clothes to the cleaners, booking theatre tickets and doing shopping. For example, yesterday I was asked to take someone’s dog to the vet’s, to find a birthday present for a six-year-old girl and to buy some mushrooms at a Chinese supermarket! I suppose that people once tried to persuade their secretaries to do jobs like those. But nowadays the secretaries are all too busy, aren’t they? We made a good profit last year, because our only expenses are petrol and advertising. My regret? I wish I’d started this business five years ago!’

Melanie

‘I’ve always loved cooking, and two years ago I found a way to make some money from my hobby. I started a business making personalised cakes and biscuits for clients. I put their names, personal messages and even photos onto my products. I started just doing it for friends, but then I began to get loads of orders through my Facebook page. It was Christmas time, and I couldn’t meet the demand. I was working in the kitchen until about 1 a.m. every day! In the end I closed the business and I stopped taking orders. It would have been OK if I could have employed other people to help, but it wasn’t possible with my cash flow situation. Thinking about it, I should have got a loan to help me, but I was nervous about asking for one. If I’d had one or two helpers, I think I would have made a good profit. Maybe I’ll try it again some day, but I’ll sort out all the finances first.’

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