Whodunit

A whodunit or whodunnit (a colloquial elision of "Who [has] done it?") is a complex plot-driven variety of detective fiction in which the puzzle regarding who committed the crime is the main focus. The reader or viewer is provided with the clues to the case, from which the identity of the perpetrator may be deduced before the story provides the revelation itself at its climax. The investigation is usually conducted by an eccentric, amateur, or semi-professional detective. A whodunit follows the paradigm of the classical detective story in the sense that it presents crime as a puzzle to be solved through a chain of questions that the detective poses. In a whodunit, however, the audience is given the opportunity to engage in the same process of deduction as the protagonist throughout the investigation of a crime. This engages the readers so that they strive to compete with or outguess the expert investigator. A defining feature of the whodunit narrative is the so-called double narrative. Here, one narrative is hidden and gradually revealed while the other is the open narrative, which often transpires in the present time of the story. This feature has been associated with the Russian literary terms syuzhet and fabula. The former involves the narrative presented to the reader by the author or the actual story as it happened in chronological order while the latter focuses on the underlying substance or material of the narrative. The double narrative has a deep structure but is specific, particularly when it comes to time and a split gaze on the narrative itself. The two tales coexist and interweave with the first tale focusing on the crime itself, what led to it, and the investigation to solve it while the second story is all about the reconstruction of the crime. Here, the diegesis or the way the characters live on the inquiry level creates the phantom narration where the objects, bodies, and words become signs for both the detective and the reader to interpret and draw their conclusions from.