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This paper proposes to confront the tenets of detective fiction and postmodernism in Jonathan Coe’s What a Carve Up! (1994), principally by focusing on one of the main assumptions related to both domains, which is that they mainly entail playfulness, either through the solving of an enigma or through parody and pastiche, and may therefore be impervious to politics and affects. The analysis of What a Carve Up! will show to what extent the novel uses and abuses the codes and conventions of the whodunit in a playful way, and displays some of the specific features of postmodernism (epistemological and ontological concerns, narrative games, self-reflexivity…), so that it may be seen as an example of metafictional detective story. At the same time however, the novel proposes a satire of the social and economic ills of British society during the Thatcher years and unveils collective and epidemic crimes committed during that era. The novel thus moves beyond the enclosed space and individual crimes of classic detective fiction and beyond the supposed playfulness and self-centeredness of postmodernism to encompass a broader political, social, ethical and emotional scope.