The "whodunit" Versus The "inverted Detective Story"
A majority of detective stories follow the "whodunit" format. The events of the crime and the subsequent events of the investigation are presented so that the reader is only provided clues from which the identity of the perpetrator of the crime may be deduced. The solution is not revealed until the final pages of the book.
In an inverted detective story, the commission of the crime, and usually also the identity of the perpetrator, is shown or described at the beginning. The remainder of the story then describes the subsequent investigation. Instead, the "puzzle" presented to the reader is discovering the clues and evidence that the perpetrator left behind.
Read more about this topic: Detective Fiction
Famous quotes containing the words detective story, inverted, detective and/or story:
“Bolkenstein, a Minister, was speaking on the Dutch programme from London, and he said that they ought to make a collection of diaries and letters after the war. Of course, they all made a rush at my diary immediately. Just imagine how interesting it would be if I were to publish a romance of the “Secret Annexe.” The title alone would be enough to make people think it was a detective story.”
—Anne Frank (1929–1945)
“Ulysses ... is a dogged attempt to cover the universe with mud, an inverted Victorianism, an attempt to make crossness and dirt succeed where sweetness and light failed, a simplification of the human character in the interests of Hell.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“I’ve always credited the private detective with a high degree of omniscience. Or is that only true in rental fiction?”
—John Paxton (1911–1985)
“When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance it becomes literature. That intensity may be a matter of style, situation, character, emotional tone, or idea, or half a dozen other things. It may also be a perfection of control over the movement of a story similar to the control a great pitcher has over the ball.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)