detective story

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Arts & Culture

detective story

narrative genre

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Mar 18, 2024 • Article History

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson

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Category: Arts & Culture

Key People:: Edgar Allan Poe; Arthur Conan Doyle; Jorge Luis Borges; Louise Penny; Alexander McCall Smith

Related Topics:: popular literature; genre

On the Web:: Academia - What is the Appeal Of Detective Fiction (Mar. 18, 2024)

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detective story, type of popular literature in which a crime is introduced and investigated and the culprit is revealed. The traditional elements of the detective story are: (1) the seemingly perfect crime; (2) the wrongly accused suspect at whom circumstantial evidence points; (3) the bungling of dim-witted police; (4) the greater powers of observation and superior mind of the detective; and (5) the startling and unexpected denouement, in which the detective reveals how the identity of the culprit was ascertained. Detective stories frequently operate on the principle that superficially convincing evidence is ultimately irrelevant. Usually it is also axiomatic that ...(100 of 896 words)

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