These 12 stories are throwbacks: two are about ghosts; one is a classic whodunit; and nearly all are narrated by reserved, innocuous minor characters straight out of 19th-century British literature.

It is a classic whodunit filled with red herrings.

For less serious fare, the schedule offers a classic whodunit and a story of a barnyard friendship.

If it sounds like a classic Western whodunit, it is, though an author working on a book about the killing said he thought the mystery might all be explainable as an accident and a cover-up.

And a strong element of romance ("Death on the Cliff Walk," by Mary Kruger) often overwhelms the basic formula for these classic whodunits.

Otto Preminger's LAURA (1944) is a classic whodunit about a detective (Dana Andrews) who falls in love with the beatiful young woman whose murder he's investigating.

Until now, Kanon's novels have all been classic whodunits whose plots essentially begin with the discovery of a body and are propelled by the search for the murderer.

As much as it is about white racism, Mr. Fuller's potent work - packaged as a classic whodunit - is also about racism among blacks themselves.

The classic whodunit in which a guest is murdered in a country manor on a stormy night has been shown in 44 countries and translated into 24 languages.

Mr. Dobyns, a poet and novelist of considerable subtlety, is no less artful at the delicate craft of the classic whodunit.