http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MysteryFiction

Albert Wiles: If it's murder, who done it?

Sam Marlowe: Who did it.

Albert Wiles: ...That's what they say, 'Whodunnit.' The Trouble with Harry If it's murder, who done it?Who did it....That's what they say, 'Whodunnit.'

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Also known as a "mystery story" or simply a "mystery", Mystery Fiction is a genre where the plot revolves around a mysterious happening that acts as the Driving Question.

In a standard mystery, the explanation for the mystery is gradually revealed by the investigative process of the protagonists. This is accomplished through a mixture of intelligence, ingenuity, the logical interpretation of evidence, and sometimes sheer luck.

Detective Fiction is a type of Mystery Fiction that focuses on a detective solving a crime, and the term is often treated as synonymous with Mystery Fiction.

Basic Classes of Mystery

The Fair-Play Whodunnit: You know what the detective knows, and if you're smart enough, at a certain point, you can solve it ahead of him without being Genre Savvy.

The Clueless Mystery: The author doesn't provide enough clues for the audience to figure it out.

Advertisement: The Reverse Whodunnit: The reader knows who, what, where, when, and why, perhaps in more detail than the detective will ever know. For the reader, the question is: How will the detective solve what appears to be a perfect crime?

For a brief history of Mystery Fiction, see the Analysis page.

Examples:

Other Examples:

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Audio Plays

Comic Books

Comic Strips

Franchise

Magazine

Pinball

Whodunnit? by Williams Electronics, which casts the player as a Hardboiled Detective who must solve a series of murders at a hotel and casino.

Tabletop Games

Theatre

Video Games

Visual Novels

Closed Nightmare

Danganronpa: Sixteen students get trapped within a unprecedented location and their only choice of escape is to commit the perfect murder without being discovered. The protagonist of each game must find the culprit of each killing, as well unravel the truth behind the location of where the killing games occurs.

Imabikiso, partially since the hero is trying to investigate where the drug Vision is being made from.

Sea Bed is billed as a yuri-themed mystery, focusing on trying to figure out what happened that caused the two main characters, Takako and Sachiko, to drift apart.

War: 13th Day first challenges you to solve the mystery of what happened to the sun. Later, you're tasked with piecing together the truth between two unreliable narrators. The True End gives you the biggest mystery of all: who are you?

Western Animation