Jacques Côté, Steve Laflamme and Stéphane Ledien are not their first detective novels. The three literature professors at Cégep de Sainte-Foy always find a few hours in their busy schedules to devote themselves to writing their respective stories.
Between meetings, correcting work and other daily tasks, they explore in their works the particular atmosphere of thrillers, “observe different eras” and imagine the panoply of characters who play out their destiny there. Between the criminals, their victims or even the investigators, who must often be very cunning.
Beyond writing, their affection for this type of book does not stop at the door of their classrooms. Quite the contrary.
An increasingly recognized genre in the great world of literature, the detective novel is a very relevant “vehicle” for teachers. To address historical events, debate the morality of a character and their “gray areas” or simply identify different stylistic devices.
“[De façon générale], the detective novel is a good Trojan horse to take the reader to an area where he might not have gone. It’s a genre that favors rhythm, which allows you to get into the heads of the protagonists — on the side of good and evil,” observes Steve Laflamme, who likes to integrate the study of certain thrillers into his literature classes.
“Just because it’s thriller doesn’t mean it’s subliterature.”
— Steve Laflamme
The three colleagues alone illustrate different branches of the genre thanks to their respective production. While Jacques Côté once again plunges the public into the biker war with the second volume of American Requiem — In the Name of the BrotherStéphane Ledien portrays his new novel, Bodies on the snowin 2012, in the middle of the Charbonneau Commission.
After The lambs of dawn (2023), Steve Laflamme returns with an investigation by Frédérique Santinelli and Guillaume Volta in Twenty-three days of hatred. A work which addresses, among other things, domestic violence.
Steve Laflamme, Jacques Côté and Stéphane Ledien share their passion for detective novels with the public, but also their students. (Jocelyn Riendeau/Le Soleil)
If their worlds vary, the teachers are nevertheless inhabited by the same desire: to “uninhibit” the detective novel in class and offer their students other literary perspectives.
“This session, I had my students read the first novel of the trilogy, Red Light, by Marie-Ève Bourassa. It’s a great way to enter the Montreal of the 1920s with the Red Light district, the gangsters and the aftermath of prohibition,” says Mr. Laflamme, who has taught at the CEGEP for 23 years.
Give the injection
By creating investigations and a host of intrigues themselves, Jacques Côté, Stéphane Ledien and Steve Laflamme are inhabited by the codes of crime fiction and are “aware of everything that has been published before” them.
Their writing, their readings and the documentary research they have done over time thus nourishes their courses as well as their works.
“Before I manage to write a book, I consult hundreds and hundreds of sites and books. I do research in archives in the United States, in newspapers in Canada,” says Jacques Côté, who has a 28-year career at Cégep de Sainte-Foy.
The latter notably finds his way of writing in the style of realist French writers like Émile Zola, who carefully observed the world around them. The novelist from Lévis also likes to “appeal to the senses” of his readers in order to create the unique atmosphere of detective novels.
The trio agrees: the noir novel could not be taught “wall to wall”, throughout a session, at CEGEP, but it is nevertheless possible for them to integrate it well into their corpus. In particular by highlighting the links that exist between today’s detective novels and serial novels, for example.
Certain classics of the genre allow them to pique the curiosity of several students.
“It’s a gateway. Often, they have heard more or less about this or that classic like Phantom of the Opera or Arsène Lupin, […] but they had never read them. They are surprised at both the pleasure of reading them and their literary quality,” says Stéphane Ledien, also holder of a doctorate in literary studies.
“We will not hide it, it is a phenomenon that we find in Europe as well as here: young people now have difficulty reading an entire book. They’ll look for summaries, ways to understand the story without having to read the book. Detective novel […] allows them to be hung up,” adds Jacques Côté.
Although often inseparable from crime fiction, violence is never gratuitous in the books written by Steve Laflamme, Jacques Côté and Stéphane Ledien. And even less in the works they teach.
According to the three experienced writers, scenes of torture and other abuses must always be “in the service of the story”.
“We don’t write specifically for an audience [comme les cégépiens]. We write for crime fiction fans. And, as a teacher, if the question of the detective novel arises in the program, we will choose the works accordingly,” underlines Stéphane Ledien in turn.
“There is a certain bad taste that must not be crossed,” the three enthusiasts conclude with a laugh.
