Thoughts on murder mysteries
Feb. 13th, 2003 05:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davywavyDue to my penchant for writing Murder Mysteries, severalpeople recommended to me Agatha Christi's 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd' on the basis of the fact that it was unconventional.
Naturally, armed with that forewarning, I twigged what was actually going on on page 3.
This is the problem with such literature; murder mysteries tend to use one or two main tricks to work, and if those conventions are subverted or twisted (and one is forewarned of that), then spotting those twists becomes easy after a while. Frustratingly so.
The tricks that the usual 'Country House' (my favourite sort) murder mystery uses are twofold - either temporally based (it appears that the murderer cannot have committed the crime as they were elsewhere at the time or someone else it tricked into thinking they saw the victim alive after the fact) or obfuscational (one does not suspect the real murderer as we are lead to think that someone else is the criminal and so we look elsewhere).
Examples:
Temporal.
Miss Scarlet looked shocked. "But Professor Plum cannot have killed Doctor Black!" she said. "He was at a scientific conference in Talinin that very afternoon, four thousand miles away!"
Hercules Poirot looked smug. "Alas no, madam. What nobody knew, except for the great Poirot, is that Professor Plum has an Estonian half-brother, Vladimir Plummov, who looks just like him! He was happy to pretend to be the professor at the conference in return for three roubles and a beet."
"Damn you, Poirot!" screamed Plum as he was dragged away by Inspector Japp.
Poirot looked at me. "Ah, mon ami. There is nothing more satisfying then the arrangement of legal execution of ones fellow man, n'est ce-pas?"
Obfuscational
"But Poirot!" Breathed Miss scarlett. "How can Colonel Mustard have killed Mrs. Peacock? It was obviously the handiwork of escaped psychopath, Professor Plum, who had sworn vengeance upon her!"
"Mais non, my dear", retorted the smug Belgian. "For the Colonel forgot to carve 'Whore' into Mrs Peacocks chest,thus missing an essential signature of Plums work (which was deliberately kept quiet by the police)"
"Damn you Poirot!" cried Colonel Mustard as he was dragged away by Inspector Japp.
"Ah, mon ami." said Poirot as he gleefully carved another notch into his walking cane "Another one for the - how you say - Tyburg Jig, yes?"
So any murder mystery theat flouts the conventiosn, and one is forewarned of any flouting, is actually made easier to solve by that same flouting. Can anyone think of any other conventions?
I'd recommend 'Have his Carcass' by Dorothy L. Sayers as a murder mystery that doesn't flout any conventions, but still remains the best 'difficult to work out' murder mystery I've read. Read it because that is how it's done, and I wish I could do as well. (Although I remain justifiably proud of Diablerie on the Orient Express.)
Naturally, armed with that forewarning, I twigged what was actually going on on page 3.
This is the problem with such literature; murder mysteries tend to use one or two main tricks to work, and if those conventions are subverted or twisted (and one is forewarned of that), then spotting those twists becomes easy after a while. Frustratingly so.
The tricks that the usual 'Country House' (my favourite sort) murder mystery uses are twofold - either temporally based (it appears that the murderer cannot have committed the crime as they were elsewhere at the time or someone else it tricked into thinking they saw the victim alive after the fact) or obfuscational (one does not suspect the real murderer as we are lead to think that someone else is the criminal and so we look elsewhere).
Examples:
Temporal.
Miss Scarlet looked shocked. "But Professor Plum cannot have killed Doctor Black!" she said. "He was at a scientific conference in Talinin that very afternoon, four thousand miles away!"
Hercules Poirot looked smug. "Alas no, madam. What nobody knew, except for the great Poirot, is that Professor Plum has an Estonian half-brother, Vladimir Plummov, who looks just like him! He was happy to pretend to be the professor at the conference in return for three roubles and a beet."
"Damn you, Poirot!" screamed Plum as he was dragged away by Inspector Japp.
Poirot looked at me. "Ah, mon ami. There is nothing more satisfying then the arrangement of legal execution of ones fellow man, n'est ce-pas?"
Obfuscational
"But Poirot!" Breathed Miss scarlett. "How can Colonel Mustard have killed Mrs. Peacock? It was obviously the handiwork of escaped psychopath, Professor Plum, who had sworn vengeance upon her!"
"Mais non, my dear", retorted the smug Belgian. "For the Colonel forgot to carve 'Whore' into Mrs Peacocks chest,thus missing an essential signature of Plums work (which was deliberately kept quiet by the police)"
"Damn you Poirot!" cried Colonel Mustard as he was dragged away by Inspector Japp.
"Ah, mon ami." said Poirot as he gleefully carved another notch into his walking cane "Another one for the - how you say - Tyburg Jig, yes?"
So any murder mystery theat flouts the conventiosn, and one is forewarned of any flouting, is actually made easier to solve by that same flouting. Can anyone think of any other conventions?
I'd recommend 'Have his Carcass' by Dorothy L. Sayers as a murder mystery that doesn't flout any conventions, but still remains the best 'difficult to work out' murder mystery I've read. Read it because that is how it's done, and I wish I could do as well. (Although I remain justifiably proud of Diablerie on the Orient Express.)
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no subject
Date: 2003-02-13 12:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-02-14 01:10 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-02-14 01:13 pm (UTC)Bells, on the other hand, I knew nothing about.
no subject
Date: 2003-02-14 01:17 am (UTC)"But, Poirot, what would the little match girl have to gain in killing the professor?"
"Ah 'Astings, but this little match girl has a certain birthmark on her wrist, a birthmark known only to belong to members of the Von Snooty family, a great dynasty of swan twaddlers; a family who the professor destroyed through his invention of the automatic swan twaddler."
"Alright, it's a fair cop, but society is to blame."
"Right, we'll arrest them instead."
no subject
Date: 2003-02-14 03:00 am (UTC)If you first have to workout who was murderers target then you have a different mystery, although others you have pointed out have to then come in to play, including motive.
Agatha Christie did a couple on that format.
I can't remember the name of the first - but it turns out that the target is not yet dead, and is the person being framed for murder.
The other is the ABC murders - a 'serial killer' is set up, killing someone who's name starts with A in a town starting with A, and so on. He is 'caught' by H. Poirot at around E - but it ain't him (who is so confused he starts thinking it might be him), so who is it? And why.
Yes these still rely on timeing/slight of hand/motivation but there is the added bit to work out - ok it sort of falls into the motivation catagory but you have to work out who was killed/targeted, not just who was the killer.
Ah mes ami...
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no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 01:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 01:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 01:42 pm (UTC)