While watching Luther: The Fallen Sun last night, it suddenly struck me that the movie was an inverted detective story. The identity of the serial killer is revealed at the beginning and the movie goes on to describe how Idris Elba/Luther nabs the devilish Serkis in the end.
Did you know that the opposite of a whodunit is a howcatchem or an inverted detective story? In a whodunit, one needs to figure out the identity of the criminal whereas in a howcatchem, the identity of the perp is revealed at the start but one needs to figure out how he is caught.
While the term "howcatchem" was coined by Philip MacDonald in 1963, the earliest example of an inverted detective story is Malice Aforethought (1931), a crime novel written by Anthony Berkeley Cox, using the pen name Francis Iles. Dial M for Murder by Frederick Knott adapted into a film by Alfred Hitchcock is another one.
The term was widely used in the 1970s. The television series, Columbo was a popular example of this genre. Keigo Higashino’s The Devotion of Suspect X (2005) is also a howcatchem. While this is not one of my favourite Higashino novels, the tedious math analogies making me lose interest towards the end, it is still an intriguing read.
How many howcatchems have you read or watched? Do write in the comments.
