Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A type of
detective story in which thefocus is not on whocommitted the crime, but what were theirmotives for committing it.
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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From Hell, a book designed to not be a "whodunit," but to be a "whydunit" and explore the London around the Jack the Ripper crimes, the mentality of the killer, the reactions, an exploration of violence, and of many other things.
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In the introduction to this collection Gregory Shepard claims that Holding was among the first crime writers to ask not so much whodunit as whydunit, which made her the precursor of the woman's psychological suspense novel and forerunner to Patricia Highsmith and Ruth Rendell.
Archive 2008-08-01 Ed Gorman 2008
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Sometimes I go back and pick up where I left off for the whydunit or howdunit.
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In the introduction to this collection Gregory Shepard claims that Holding was among the first crime writers to ask not so much whodunit as whydunit, which made her the precursor of the woman's psychological suspense novel and forerunner to Patricia Highsmith and Ruth Rendell.
Elizabeth Sanxay Holding; Michael Connelly Ed Gorman 2008
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The whodunit of Kidnapped is fine, but it could have used more work on its whydunit.
A Well-Made Abduction Mystery, Ten Years Too Late - Tuned In - TIME.com 2006
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The Washington Post reviewer calls the book a "whydunit."
Archive 2005-10-01 Tripp 2005
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The whydunit does not attempt to find new motives for murder - there are probably no new motives, and surely the old ones are still enormously virile - rather, the whydunit probes more deeply, and more dangerously, into even the oldest of criminological causes (including, these hypnotic days, the ancient ones dredged w through regression).
In The Queens' Parlour Queen, Ellery 1864
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It was the "inverted" detective story that ushered in the whydunit stage with which so many mystery writers (to say nothing of "serious" writers) are currently preoccupied ...
In The Queens' Parlour Queen, Ellery 1864
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Instead, Bong re-centers the mystery from a whodunit to something far more disturbing -- a whydunit, with a gnarl of shared guilt at its core.
NashvilleScene.com 2010
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But as she delves further into the case, it becomes more whydunit than whodunit and the picture that emerges is one of a school rife with bullying among staff and pupils.
EducationNews.org 2010
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