Detective Fiction

Detective fiction is a prose genre whose plot is built on the solving of a mysterious crime (most often a murder) through logical analysis, observation, and deduction; at its center stands the figure of the investigator or detective, while the reader is drawn into an intellectual game of unraveling the puzzle. The founder of the genre is considered to be Edgar Allan Poe (the stories about the sleuth Dupin); the classic canon was established by Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes) and Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple). Detective fiction demands a clear logical construction, 'fair play' with the reader, and an unexpected but motivated resolution. In Ukrainian literature elements of the detective are present in adventure and social-psychological prose; the genre was taken up by contemporary authors, notably Andrii Kokotiukha, who develops the retro-detective on Ukrainian historical material.