As movies such as Clue or Murder by Death suggest, the classic whodunnit has an inherent sense of silliness. In a realistic scenario, a murder victim isn’t surrounded by a half dozen or more plausible killers and their death is not accomplished by Rube Goldberg-like mechanics. In a post on CrimeReads, writer Daisy Waugh says crime writers should lean into the absurdity of the sub-genre.
In fact, Waugh says the killer’s identity doesn’t really matter, provided the story delivers. “In fact, for the story to work, it mustn’t really matter whodunnit, because—clearly—among the cast of characters in any mystery novel, some will have to get dun in, and some will have had to do the dunning,” she says. “If a reader cares too much about the victims, it ruins the sport of finding out who murdered them.”
