Mystery Terms

Collecting the facts and drawing a possible conclusion

• breakthrough

• deduction

• lead

• suspect

Person who has personal knowledge about a crime

• Clue

• Motive

• Red herring

• Witness

A thing or statement that helps to prove who committed the crime

• Evidence

• Mystery

• Victim

• Suspect

A plea offered by an accused person of not having been at the scene of a crime

• Planted

• Alibi

• Evidence

• Lead

Final resolution or clarification of a dramatic or narrative plot; often a gathering of characters to go over the solution to a crime in a mystery

• Breakthrough

• Suspense

• Melodrama

• Denouement

The prevailing emotional tone or general attitude

• suspense

• melodrama

• mood

• foreshadowing

An investigator or detective

• sleuth

• victim

• witness

• suspect

Anxiety or apprehension resulting from an uncertain, undecided, or mysterious situation

• red herring

• hunch

• suspense

• melodrama

Something that is unknown

• breakthrough

• mystery

• clue

• lead

Literary device in which an earlier event is inserted into the normal chronological order of a narrative

• breakthrough

• planted

• mood

• flashback