Switch on any TV channel nowadays and the chances are there'll be a detective series showing. Some of them, like Sherlock Holmes, are based on a well-known fictional detective from books. Others are created specially for television.

But wherever the stories come from, the programmes are very popular, and they're watched by millions of people in many countries all around the world. And some of the programmes can be twenty years old, yet they're still shown regularly on TV channels, and get large audiences. And a new generation of viewers is enjoying detective series just as much.

Yet why are these detective stories so popular? They all involve crimes of some kind, and in real life they wouldn't be easy to read about in the newspapers. But perhaps because they're in a TV show, they don't have the same effect on us anymore.

Or perhaps the best aspect of the show is that while you're watching, you can try to work out who committed the crime - and solve it more quickly than the detective! That's always fun - but sometimes it's not possible because the detective reveals something at the last minute that we couldn't possibly know - and then we feel disappointed!

Crime fiction books are popular too. Years ago they weren't seen as very serious literature, but now more and more people are buying them and enjoying them. And the quality of the writing has grown enormously. Happy reading!​