Albert Cornelis Baantjer (born September 16, 1923 in Urk), often called Appie Baantjer, A.C. Baantjer or simply Baantjer, is a Dutch policeman turned novelist. Urk is a municipality and a town in the Flevoland province in the central Netherlands. ... A novel is an extended work of written, narrative, prose fiction, usually in story form; the writer of a novel is a novelist. ...

He is mainly known for his large series of detective novels revolving around police inspector De Cock and his side-kick, sergeant Vledder. The name of the protagonist simply means "cook" in Dutch, but has a unusual spelling which is at the heart of a running gag that involves De Cock spelling out his name every time he introduces himself to someone. Detective fiction is a branch of crime fiction that centres upon the investigation of a crime, usually murder, by a detective, either professional or amateur. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

The novels have spin-offs in the form of a motion picture [1] and a long-running TV-series [2]. Both are named after the author, rather than the main character(s). This led to screenwriter Berend Boudewijn's bitter statement in a Dutch TV Guide ("VPRO Gids", November 11, 2005) that "Baantjer is the only TV-series in the world that is named after a writer, even though it is not written by him". Screenwriters, scenarists or script writers, are authors who write the screenplays from which movies are made. ...