Columbo is an American television series starring Peter Falk as a homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department.[2][3] The character and show, created by William Link and Richard Levinson, popularized the inverted detective story format, which begins by showing the commission of the crime and its perpetrator; the series therefore has no "whodunit" element. The plot revolves around how a perpetrator whose identity is already known to the audience will finally be caught and exposed (which the show's writers called a "howcatchem", rather than a "whodunit").