whydunit
noun1
Broadcasting, Film, Literature, Media, Publishing, Television 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.
- 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.1985, Laurence Urdang, Walter W. Hunsinger, Nancy LaRoche, Picturesque expressions: a thematic dictionary, page 420:
- Related terms
- howdunit, wheredunit, whodunit