Tam Sventon (

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

: ''Ture Sventon'') is a fictional

private detective A private investigator (often abbreviated to PI and informally called a private eye), a private detective, or inquiry agent is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private investigators of ...

based in

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

, the main character in nine well-known

children's book Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader. Children's ...

s written by

Åke Holmberg Åke Robert Holmberg (31 May 1907 in Stockholm – 9 September 1991) was a Swedish writer and translator, most famous for his nine children's books about detective Tam Sventon Tam Sventon (Swedish: ''Ture Sventon'') is a fictional private d ...

between 1948 and 1973. He is characterized by eating

semla A semla, vastlakukkel, laskiaispulla, fastlagsbulle/fastelavnsbolle or vēja kūkas is a traditional sweet roll made in various forms in Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Norway, Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Latvia, associated with Lent and e ...

s, not being able to pronounce "s" in many situations (for instance, he says "temla" instead of "semla"), and riding on a

flying carpet A magic carpet, also called a flying carpet, is a legendary carpet and common trope in fantasy fiction. It is typically used as a form of transportation and can quickly or instantaneously carry its users to their destination. In literature One o ...

. Several of the books were translated into English by Lilian Seaton. In the English versions, semlas are replaced by

hot cross bun A hot cross bun is a spiced sweet bun usually made with fruit, marked with a cross on the top, and has been traditionally eaten on Good Friday in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, India, Pakistan and ...

s. Between 1969 and 1975, comics based on the books were also published, drawn by the books' main illustrator

Sven Hemmel Sven (in Danish and Norwegian, also Svend and also in Norwegian most commonly Svein) is a Scandinavian first name which is also used in the Low Countries and German-speaking countries. The name itself is Old Norse for "young man" or "young warri ...

. A few of these episodes have been collected into

album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

s. The books have also been adapted into film, two times as feature films (1972 and 1991), and two times as TV series (1989 and 2019).

The books

*''Ture Sventon, privatdetektiv'' (1948), English: ''Tam Sventon, Private Detective'' *''Ture Sventon i öknen'' (1949), English: ''Tam Sventon, Desert Detective'' *''Ture Sventon i London'' (1950) *''Ture Sventon i Paris'' (1953) *''Ture Sventon i Stockholm'' (1954), English: ''Tam Sventon and the Silver-Plate Gang'' *''Ture Sventon och Isabella'' (1955) *''Ture Sventon i spökhuset'' (1965) *''Ture Sventon i varuhuset'' (1968), English: ''Tam Sventon and Discovery P3X'' *''Ture Sventon i Venedig'' (1973)

Notes

Ture Sventon
at

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the OCL ...

Tam Sventon
at WorldCat {{DEFAULTSORT:Sventon, Tam Swedish children's book series Fictional private investigators Fictional Swedish people Children's mystery novels Book series introduced in 1948