What do you call the mystery trope where the chapters alternate between the investigation (post-murder) and the crime (pre-murder)? The timelines – the murder and the arrest (or reveal) – tend to sync up at the end of the novel.
I am making my way through Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad books. I just started book #5 – The Secret Place. I am not the biggest reader of modern mystery novels. I usually dive into old spy novels – or mysteries by Raymond Chandler or John D. MacDonald. But I was struck by how common this trope has become recently – at least in the books I have been reading. It can be effective in both showing multiple perspectives and changing the pace/flow of the book. And yet…yet…it seems like a crutch. It’s like the TV equivalent of watching Lost.
Is this a relatively new or new-ish phenomena? I’m sure it’s been used for over 100+ years, but has it become the norm?
by ColdStreamPond