whydunit
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English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Noun
[edit]whydunit (plural whydunits)
- (literature, film) A type of detective story in which the focus is not on the person who committed the crime, but on the motives for committing it.
- 1985, Laurence Urdang, Walter W. Hunsinger, Nancy LaRoche, Picturesque expressions: a thematic dictionary[1], page 420:
- Connery takes over the interrogation and in the process beats the man to death. This much we know almost from the beginning, so the film is less of a whodunit than a whydunit.