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Post by Salzmank on Oct 11, 2022 19:30:37 GMT
I was watching a trailer for Magpie Murders, an interesting-looking TV adaptation of a book I wasn’t exactly crazy about. (I have the feeling the adaptation will tone down the book’s bizarre mean-spiritedness.) Anyway, at one point the director says:That reminded me of a quote I read years ago to the effect that an author of a whodunit can’t make the killer the most-likely suspect, because a whodunit is trying to surprise, but people are smart enough to know it can’t be the least-likely suspect either. So the speaker ends up saying the most surprising whodunit killer is the moderately likely suspect. The quote was a joke, I think, but the point it makes is more or less correct. (The best solution is probably to do a killer whom the reader never even suspects, but that is extremely hard, especially when readers are primed to suspect everyone.) For some reason I thought the quote was from The Simpsons, but I don’t remember it from “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” (which, incidentally, does have a great least-likely culprit). I could be completely wrong on the Simpsons thing. Anyone know this? Thanks in advance. |
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Post by Salzmank on Oct 12, 2022 16:52:45 GMT
Figured this out: It’s not The Simpsons, it’s The Office. Dwight says:Again, this is actually a pretty fair summary of puzzle-plotting techniques.
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Post by marianne48 on Oct 12, 2022 17:39:27 GMT
In Agatha Christie's The Mysterious Affair at Styles, it was the most likely suspect (with the help of an accomplice). And I don't think the butler ever did it (the murder, anyway) in any of her novels, so I don't know where that cliche came from. I think it's true that in most movie and TV adaptations of murder mysteries, the murderer is generally the biggest star. . |
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Post by Salzmank on Oct 12, 2022 18:52:25 GMT
In Agatha Christie's The Mysterious Affair at Styles, it was the most likely suspect (with the help of an accomplice). And I don't think the butler ever did it (the murder, anyway) in any of her novels, so I don't know where that cliche came from.I think it's true that in most movie and TV adaptations of murder mysteries, the murderer is generally the biggest star. . I believe it comes from a Mary Roberts Rinehart book, but yeah, no one ever does that cliché anymore except to mock it.
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Post by Salzmank on Oct 12, 2022 19:34:27 GMT
My equivocation on the quotation’s accuracy (“more or less correct,” “pretty fair summary”), by the way, is because of the point you make, marianne48 . I’d go so far as to say that (vague, this) the “double bluff” of making the most-likely suspect the killer was common during the so-called Golden Age of Detective Fiction. I can think of examples by almost all the best-known Golden Age mystery writers: Christie, John Dickson Carr, Ellery Queen, Christianna Brand, Dorothy L. Sayers, Anthony Berkeley. And Ngaio Marsh (on whose work I’m mixed) used the trick so many times, to the point that it was no longer surprising in her hands. (With Christie, at least, she varies the trick up every time she uses it.) But a double bluff does turn a most-likely suspect into a least-likely—or “medium-likely”—suspect, so I think the quote’s point is still mostly accurate. |
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Post by novastar6 on Oct 13, 2022 3:50:25 GMT
LEAST likely are the minor characters that are only there for a few scenes and don't really bring anything, so you work your way back from them.
Now there are some pretty badly written mystery books where it IS the most likely suspect, because they're the ONLY one it could possibly be, like Jackie Griffith's Recipe for Trouble, how did that book even get published? You have ONE, count em, ONE suspect total in the whole book, oh gee, who's it gonna be?
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Post by mikef6 on Nov 16, 2022 17:21:13 GMT
In the so-called “cozy” mystery, there is often an array of suspects all of whom could be guilty – no “least likely” or “most likely.” The killer is mostly revealed not by detection and putting together clues but when from out of the blue they attack and try to kill whoever is the amateur detective for “getting too close.”
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Post by Salzmank on Nov 16, 2022 17:27:36 GMT
In the so-called “cozy” mystery, there is often an array of suspects all of whom could be guilty – no “least likely” or “most likely.” The killer is mostly revealed not by detection and putting together clues but when from out of the blue they attack and try to kill whoever is the amateur detective for “getting too close.” Well, yeah, I was thinking more of old-fashioned, “Golden Age” (or Golden Age-style) mysteries—which I distinguish from modern “cozies” although the publishing industry (mostly) doesn’t. |
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Post by Admiral Ackbar on Nov 17, 2022 6:42:14 GMT
Figured this out: It’s not The Simpsons, it’s The Office. Dwight says:Again, this is actually a pretty fair summary of puzzle-plotting techniques. I wish I’d seen this the day you posted it because I knew the answer immediately.  That’s a great episode of The Office too. One of my favorites.
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Post by Salzmank on Nov 17, 2022 15:32:38 GMT
Figured this out: It’s not The Simpsons, it’s The Office. Dwight says:Again, this is actually a pretty fair summary of puzzle-plotting techniques. I wish I’d seen this the day you posted it because I knew the answer immediately. That’s a great episode of The Office too. One of my favorites. I had a feeling you’d know!
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Post by Vegas on Dec 24, 2022 21:08:03 GMT
I think it's true that in most movie and TV adaptations of murder mysteries, the murderer is generally the biggest star. . Or... An actor too famous to be playing a background character. That was the spoiler for The Bone Collector. |
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