Closed circle of suspects
Subgenre of detective fiction / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The closed circle of suspects is a common element of detective fiction, and the subgenre that employs it can be referred to as the closed circle mystery.[1][2][3] Less precisely, this subgenre – works with the closed circle literary device – is simply known as the "classic", "traditional" or "cozy" detective fiction.[4][5]
It refers to a situation in which for a given crime (usually a murder), there is a quickly established, limited number of suspects, each with credible means, motive, and opportunity.[1][2][6][7] In other words, it is known that the criminal is one of the people present at or nearby the scene, and the crime could not have been committed by some outsider.[3][8] The detective has to solve the crime, figuring out the criminal from this pool of suspects, rather than searching for an entirely unknown perpetrator.[1][3]