The Puzzle of the Mystery Novel

Abstract

The Slovene mystery novel of the 1990's can be, with respect to the method of solving the identity puzzle, expressed in the unmasking narrative, divided into classical and contemporary mystery novel. "Non-classical" contemporary mystery novel differs from the classical particularly in suspense, as in the former the detective no longer searches for clues, therefore in indentity issue moves from the story plane to the plane of narrative processes., i.e., the contemporary mystery novel does not only ask the question " Who is the perpetrator?" but also "What is the mystery?" Even if the crime is still its pivotal point of the narrative, the formal intertextual processes of referenceto literary and cineatic tradition color it ironic and humorous. The identity puzzle, i.e., search for the culprit, was thus in the contemporary Slovene mystery novel expanded into pursuit ot its own (narrator's and genre's) indices-its genre deviations renovated and refined it from literary point of view.