Thecrime-fictionvocabularycanbeas
excitingasthestoriesthemselves
BYSaptakChoudhuryILLUSTRATIONS: GETTY IMAGES
LANGUAGE
Ver y fe w t h i n g s c a n
outmatch the thrill of
a bone-chilling, cold-
blooded murder mystery,
especially on a rainy
evening. We dig into
the best of crime and
detective fiction and
unravel vocabulary that
brings alive twisted
plots and tropes – and
help readers understand
whodunnit and how.Crime Fiction vs Detective Fiction
CRIME FICTION: A broad overarch-
ing genre, it is used to describe
any work of fiction that details an
act of a crime being committed.
It does not necessarily require
the presence of a detective for itsexecution – it may even be a fic-
tional autobiography of criminals
and their thrilling escapades.DETECTIVE FICTION: This is a nar-
rower category with a strong fo-
cus on detectives. Irrespective of
whether they have been thrust into
the role accidentally or not, the de-
tective is expected to expose the
guilty party and their evil mach-
inations by the end.ALIBI: Any piece of circumstan-
tial, testimonial evidence or a
plot development that directly or
accidentally ‘proves’ a particular
person was elsewhere at the time
of the crime. Often, the culprits
are shown to depend on testimo-
nies of the cast to vindicate their
innocence, while the detectives
must break them down. Think of
a culprit who moves the hands of
all the clocks in a house tofalsify73