In "Detective Story," Auden masterfully constructs a narrative that ensnares the reader much like a fictional detective ensnares a culprit. The poem begins in a familiar, formulaic setting, teeming with recognizable life. However, Auden abruptly unveils a murder, compelling the reader to grapple with the unsettling morality of deriving pleasure from crime and its retribution.

Auden's use of ambiguous pronouns intricately draws the reader into a complex moral landscape. He opens with the line, “for who is ever quite without his landscape,” inviting readers to see themselves in the vague "who," a person leading an ordinary life within an ordinary setting. This deliberate ambiguity encourages identification with the landscape Auden paints: “The straggling village street, the house in trees,/ all near the church, or else the gloomy town house.” The reader’s initial association with the protagonist’s happiness quickly transforms into a shared experience of "our happiness," turning the reader into a participant in the enjoyment of a fictional character’s misfortune.

Imagery in the poem paints a dual picture of the everyday and the sinister. Words like "straggling" and "gloomy," innocuous at first glance, gather a more sinister connotation as the narrative unfolds, hinting at lurking crime and death. The phrase “mark the spot/ where the body of his happiness was first discovered” transcends metaphor to suggest a literal crime scene. Similarly, the "buried past" hints at both hidden truths and literal interment, blurring the lines between metaphor and reality.

Auden further explores these themes through ironic juxtapositions, such as “the thrilling final chase, the kill,” which implicates the reader in the murderer's demise. He reinforces this complicity with the phrase, “but time is always killed,” where the metaphorical becomes literal, reflecting on the inevitable passage of time and the constant dance with mortality and morality.