Depending on who you ask, the term "whodunit" was first coined sometime around 1930, but the literary form predates that name by several decades. Still, it was in the years between the two World Wars-the so-called "Golden Age" of mystery fiction-that the style flourished.

Depending on who you ask, the term "whodunit" was first coined sometime around 1930, but the literary form predates that name by several decades. Still, it was in the years between the two World Wars-the so-called "Golden Age" of mystery fiction-that the style flourished.

Short mysteries were published far and wide by a variety of authors, not just those primarily associated with the genre. They appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan, The New Yorker, and other high-end periodicals that still exist today.

These tales were, in short, among the most popular diversions in literature and were of the highest caliber.