Who has done it?

The detective story is sometimes called 'whodunit' because the reader has to work ..... who did it, who committed the crime.

The skill of course of the writing is how many times a reader can be sent up ..... alleys.

Another way of putting this is how many red ..... the author can throw in the reader's path.

The idea is to keep the readers in a permanent state of ..... so that they never know what's going to happen next.

As the plot ....., you find yourself agreeing with one character's solution and then another's.

As a result you feel as if you are walking in a ..... since at each turning you come to a block end.

One of the best known detectives is Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot who uses what he calls his little grey ..... - his brains.

Invariably Poirots calls all the ..... together in the last part of the story.

One by one he ..... the innocent until finally the murderer is unmasked.

The thing that always surprises me is the fact that the murderer bothers to take ..... in the final meeting.