Inverted detective story

An inverted detective story, occasionally known as a "howcatchem", is a murder mystery fiction structure in which the commission of the crime is shown or described at the beginning,[1] usually including the identity of the perpetrator.

One early and prominent example of this subgenre is Malice Aforethought, written in 1931 by Anthony Berkeley Cox writing as Francis Iles.

Tony Wendice outlines his plans to murder his wife Margot in the opening scenes, leaving the viewer with no questions about perpetrator or motive, only with how the situation will be resolved.

The 1954 American film Dragnet uses this format as the viewer witnesses the killing of a small-time hoodlum and watches as police led by Sergeant Joe Friday work to apprehend the man's killer and the criminal leader at its heart.

The short stories written by William Edward "Roy" Vickers about the Department of Dead Ends are nearly all of the inverted type.

In both books—as in some other Sayers detective novels, including her last, Busman's Honeymoon, the mystery to be solved is mainly, "why did this person have any motive to commit this murder" and "how did he or she do it" (which makes this format more similar to the majority of police investigations).

Lord Peter explained his investigation in detail, complete to the villain's stumbling into a vat of cyanide-and-copper-sulphate electroplating solution.

[8] The 1989 theatrical play Over My Dead Body, by Michael Sutton and Anthony Fingleton, depicts three elderly detective story writers committing a real-life locked room murder in Rube Goldbergian fashion.

In the 1990s, some episodes of Diagnosis: Murder were presented in the inverted detective story format, usually when featuring a "big name" (or at least recognizable) guest star.

TV shows Monk, Criminal Minds, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent have frequently featured episodes structured as inverted detective stories, in which the viewer typically witnesses the killer commit the crime (during which the killer's identity is revealed to the audience), and then watches as the detectives try to solve it.