Whodunit

A whodunit or whodunnit (for "Who done it?" and sometimes referred to as a Golden Age Mystery novel) is a complex, plot-driven variety of the detective story in which the puzzle is paramount. The reader is provided with clues from which the identity of the perpetrator of the crime may be deduced before the solution is revealed in the final pages of the book. The investigation is usually conducted by an eccentric amateur or semi-professional detective. The locked-room mystery is a specialized kind of a whodunit.

Related Topics:
Detective story - Locked-room mystery

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The whodunit flourished during the so-called "Golden Age" of detective fiction, during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, when it was the predominant mode of crime writing. Many of the best writers of whodunits in this period were British -- notably Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Josephine Tey, Michael Innes, Nicholas Blake, Christianna Brand and Edmund Crispin. Others -- S. S. Van Dine, John Dickson Carr, and Ellery Queen -- were American, but imitated the "English" style. Still others, such as Rex Stout, Clayton Rawson, and Earl Derr Biggers, aimed for a more "American" style.

Related Topics:
Golden Age - 1920s - 1930s - 1940s - British - Agatha Christie - Dorothy L. Sayers - Josephine Tey - Michael Innes - Nicholas Blake - Christianna Brand - Edmund Crispin - S. S. Van Dine - John Dickson Carr - Ellery Queen - American - Rex Stout - Clayton Rawson - Earl Derr Biggers

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Over time, certain conventions and clichés developed that limited any surprises on the part of the reader to the twists and turns within the plot and of course to the identity of the murderer. Several authors excelled, after successfully leading their readers on the wrong track, in convincingly revealing to them the least likely suspect as the real villain of the story. What is more, they had a predilection for certain casts of characters and settings, with the secluded English country house at the top of the list.

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A U.S. reaction to the cozy conventionality of British murder mysteries was the American hard-boiled school of crime writing of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane, among others.

Related Topics:
Hard-boiled - Raymond Chandler - Dashiell Hammett - Mickey Spillane

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