One of the main concerns when teaching a foreign language is how to encourage students to read and become interested in its literature. This article presents detective fiction as a pedagogical tool that provides the key elements to make it appealing for young readers. In this way, the mystery, the action and the suspense in the story; the figure of the detective; or the fact that the end of the story is always morally acceptable turn this literary genre in a magnificent reading to practise the target language and explore the social and cultural issues portrayed. The aim of my work is to present a series of activities related with the detective fiction of international writers such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Francisco González Ledesma, Abdelilah Hamdouchi and James McClure that demonstrate the pedagogical value and practical use of detective fiction.