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Definition 2024


howdunit

howdunit

English

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Noun

howdunit (plural howdunits)

  1. A type of detective story in which the focus is not on who committed the crime, but how they have done so.
    1969, Ellery Queen: In the Queens' Parlor, and Other Leaves from the Editors' Notebook, p 72 :
    • After half a century, the whodunit was joined by the howdunit, in which the emphasis swung from the identity of the murderer to the method by which the murder was committed.

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