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Detective Drama is a type of Mystery Fiction that follows the cases of a central detective character as he investigates a crime, usually from from initial investigation to arrest. The character is usually a police detective or Private Detective, but can also be an Amateur Sleuth or even a Kid Detective with acute sleuthing skills.
There are two varieties of Detective Drama, which correspond to the two basic types of mystery: closed and open. In a "closed" mystery, the viewer is as in the dark as the detective (and maybe moreso), and only learns the answer to the mystery when the detective reveals it. In an "open" mystery (Reverse Whodunnit), the viewer has an omniscient view of the plot and knows the solution to the mystery; the entertainment value comes from watching the detective unravel it.
For common types of detectives, see Cops and Detectives.
For a list of related tropes, see Mystery Tropes and Crime and Punishment Tropes. For a list of creators, see Mystery Story Creator Index.
Anime and Manga[]
- Detective Conan
- EL
- Gosick
- The Kindaichi Case Files
- MPD Psycho
- See also Mystery and Detective Anime And Manga
Comic Books[]
- Gotham Central manages to put a standard Detective Drama into the world of superheroes within a comic book. Their foes might be Batman and Flash supervillains, but the storylines are straight drama involving normal police detectives going about their work. Everybody said it would not work, but it wound up wining critical acclaim and several awards (But was still Too Good to Last, the sales numbers never quite matched the praise).
Fan Fiction[]
Film[]
Literature[]
- Edgar Allan Poe's Dupin stories, the Trope Maker
- Sherlock Holmes, the Trope Codifier
- For the rest of the examples, see Detective Literature
Live Action Television[]
Visual Novel[]
- Jake Hunter
- The PSP adaptation of To Aru Kagaku no Railgun.
- This genre (and, many, many other tropes) is Deconstructed in Umineko no Naku Koro ni. No Erika, you're the murderer.