Elements of Mystery Genres of Suspense

The protagonist of a mystery is a SLEUTH, which is simply someone who is trying to solve a mystery. The sleuth can be a law enforcement official like an Inspector or Detective (Hercule Poirot, Jacques Clouseau), a private investigator (Sam Spade, Sherlock Holmes), a curious amateur (Jessica Fletcher, Mma. Ramotswe), or even a wanted vigilante (Batman).

If the sleuth is not part of a police department, they will often befriend someone in the police that will help them--Fletcher has Sheriff Metzger, Holmes has Inspector Lestrade, Batman has Commissioner Gordon, etc. Many sleuths also have a partner who helps them in crime detection, mostly so authors have a way for the sleuth to discuss the clues--Mma. Ramotswe has her secretary Mma. Makutsi, Sam Spade has his partner Miles Archer, Holmes has Dr. Watson, Batman has a variety of Robins and Batgirls, etc.

Professional or not, most sleuths fall into two groups: the HARD-BOILED SLEUTH and the COZY SLEUTH. The hard-boiled sleuth is serious and stone-faced, often engaging in vice (smoking, drinking, drug use), uses violence to get answers, and isn't afraid to break the law to get results. Sherlock Holmes is the basis of this kind of detective, as he was strictly serious, smoked a pipe, was addicted to opium, and pummeled suspects who attacked him. While Homes defined their behavior, Humphrey Bogart (who portrayed both Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe) defined the hardboiled sleuth's look--a fedora and trenchcoat. Hard-boiled sleuths operate out of cities and also include Dick Tracy, Slam Bradley, and Batman.

On the other end of the spectrum, a cozy detective is an intelligent and well-connected member of their small-town community that solves crimes through eavesdropping, casual conversation, and wearing disguises. The cozy sleuth avoids violence if at all possible, is well-liked, and tries to follow the law (though they are often dismissed by police as busybodies). There is a bit of comedy to the cozy sleuth, as they sometimes get results purely by accident. Most cozy sleuths are traditionally women like Mme. Ramotswe and Jessica Fletcher, but modern cozy detectives include Father Brown, Adrian Monk, and Mystery, Incorporated. Some cozy sleuths are even referred to as "armchair detectives," as they never visit the crime scenes but solve crimes after being told all the clues.

While most detectives fall into hard-boiled or cozy, some are both. Take Hercule Poirot: like the cozy sleuth, he typically gathers facts through pleasant conversation and gentlemanly actions. However, Poirot will use violence and severe interrogation like the hard-boiled sleuth when pushed. In other stories, a more hard-boiled sleuth is paired with a cozy sleuth to create a "good cop, bad cop" dynamic, like Angel and Butterman in Hot Fuzz, Agents J and K in Men in Black, and Judy and Nick in Zootopia.

A giant hound seems to have frightened an aging monarch to death. An albino monk shoots a curator at the Louvre. An old woman disappears off a moving train and only one other person remembers her. A mob assassin was shot in his bathtub the same night a bomb is sent to the D.A.'s house. Someone stabbed Mr. Body in the middle of a dinner party.

What do all of these situations have in common? One, they all introduce popular mystery stories (The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Da Vinci Code, The Lady Vanishes, The Long Halloween, and Clue). Two, they all revolve around the same question: WHODUNIT? (who done it)

All mysteries are a whodunit: at the start, no one knows who committed the original crime, and the mystery ends with the reveal of exactly who committed the crime, why they committed the crime, and how they committed the crime in detail. Occasionally, a mystery around a disappearance or kidnapping will also have the additional question of where are they? Occasionally, some of these questions are known at the start. For example, Mr. Body was killed because he was a blackmailer, but who killed him with what object is the mystery. There are even so-called inverted mysteries like the novels of Dorothy L. Sayers where there is only one suspect and the mystery is how the sleuth can prove they did it. However, any story that shows the culprit committing the crime with their full identity exposed is a crime story, often called a howcatchem.

To figure out the whodunit, the sleuth must have some whos to investigate. This list of potential suspects is colorfully referred to as a ROGUES GALLERY. The sleuth initially compiles this list based on who was in the vicinity of the crime at the time it took place. For example, in Murder on the Orient Express, when Hercule Poirot discovers the American in the neighboring cabin is murdered, his rogues' gallery is simply the thirteen other passengers on the train. The sleuth also considers everyone who was personally close to the victim as part of the rogues gallery. When Mikael Blomkvist is retained to uncover the facts behind Harriet Vanger's disappearance, all his suspects are illustrated on the Vanger family tree.

Once the list is compiled, the sleuth will interview each person in the gallery to hear each one's story and determine who is lying. Often, these interviews will lead to more rogues that could be guilty and reveal potential motives behind the crime. The sleuth (and thus the audience) must pay attention to not just the words of each suspect but their appearance, body language, gesture, and gait, as the smallest clue (like a suspect being left-handed or walking with a limp) can indicate their guilt or innocence.

While Pulp classics like Dick Tracy have fantastic and obviously-named rogues (Flattop Jones, Tess Trueheart, Vitamin Flintheart, Rughead), most rogues galleries are populated by everyday people, often including the client who hired the detective. Still, there are some rogues that typically appear in these galleries:

• THE INGENUE: a young girl who is inexperienced in life and goodhearted but not innocent--she dabbles in smoking, drinking, and deceit. The noir ingenue may even be complicit in the crime but does so for genuinely good reasons. Examples: Lola Dietrichson in Double Indemnity, Marta Cabrera in Knives Out, Miss Stapleton in The Hound of the Baskervilles, and Vivian Rutledge in The Big Sleep.
• THE FEMME FATALE: an attractive seductress who brings ruin to men who get involved with her and often tries to seduce the sleuth. Examples: Evelyn Mulwray in Chinatown, Breathless Mahoney in Dick Tracy, Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity.
• THE DOWAGER: an elderly rich woman who has contempt for the sleuth and demands that she be left entirely out of the investigation. Examples: Princess Dragomiroff in Murder on the Orient Express, Marie Van Schuyler in Death on the Nile, and Mrs. Boyle in The Mousetrap.
• THE TWO-TIMER: a well-liked man who resists the investigation as it might expose his extramarital affair and other shady secrets. Examples: Richard Drysdale in Knives Out, Clyde Wynant in The Thin Man, Simon Doyle in Death on the Nile, and Jack Stapleton in The Hound of the Baskervilles.
• THE FATCAT: an influential politician or industrialist who tries to derail the investigation using their power and influence. Examples: Casper Gutman in The Maltese Falcon, Hans-Erik Wennerström in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Noah Cross in Chinatown, and Lawrence Wargrave in And Then There Were None.
• THE VETERAN: a gruff former military man included as a way for the author to reveal clues revolving around weapons and arms. Examples: Colonel Arbuthnot in Murder on the Orient Express, Major Metcalf in The Mousetrap, and Colonel Mustard in Clue.
• THE SAWBONES: a serious and reserved young doctor included as a way for the author to reveal clues regarding injuries and causes of death. Examples: Dr. Constantine in Murder on the Orient Express, Dr. Armstrong in And Then There Were None, and Mortimer in The Hound of the Baskervilles.
• THE SLEEZEBALL: a known criminal that no one likes who is involved in smuggling, gambling, or other illicit business. He's included as a way for the author to reveal clues regarding the criminal underground. Examples: Joe Cairo in The Maltese Falcon, Arthur Geiger in The Big Sleep, Arthur Nunheim in The Thin Man, and Isaac Morris in And Then There Were None.
• THE GOON: a hired criminal used to intimidate or assassinate others who is not very bright and, even if they committed the crime, is not the person who planned the crime. Examples: Stutsy Burke in The Thin Man, Lesgate in Dial M for Murder, Wilmer Cook in The Maltese Falcon, Harry Jones in The Big Sleep, and Claude Mulvihill in Chinatown.
• THE HELP: a servant in the household that had complete access to the victim and knowledge of their secrets. Examples: Edward Masterman in Murder on the Orient Express, Louise Bourget in Death on the Nile, Owen Taylor in The Big Sleep, and The Barrymores in The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Remember, in a good mystery story, EVERYONE is a suspect.

Just why is everyone a suspect in a mystery? One, it makes the mystery more fun to solve if there are lots of potential suspects. More than this, each member of the rogues gallery not only had the means to commit the crime but the motivation to commit the crime as well. As the investigation moves forward, the sleuth reveals the desires hidden deep down in each suspect, as each member has secrets that they keep others from knowing. Maybe they stood to gain a massive inheritance once the victim is murdered. Maybe the victim sent them to prison for three years and the killing was payback. Maybe they wanted to escape being blackmailed and murdering the blackmailer was the only way out. No crime is committed for no reason in a mystery, as even an accidental death has someone covering it up… or else there would be no mystery.

Conversely, some deep desires exonerate the suspect from the crime. If the suspicious butler was really in love with maid, he wouldn’t have killed her. If the brash colonel is in reality a coward who is afraid of guns, he couldn’t have shot the victim. If the femme fatale was with her secret lover at a restaurant when her husband was kidnapped, she wasn’t the one to take him. This often creates an ALABI, evidence that the person was not able to commit the crime when, where, and how it was done.

How does the sleuth figure out these desires? They talk to the suspects. By bringing up personal questions and parts of their alibi that don’t make sense with the facts of the case. Suspects will typically admit their secrets to the sleuth to get themselves off the suspect list. They will occasionally even reveal the deep dark secrets of some of the other rogues during their interview to cast suspicion on them.

To figure out the mystery, the detective needs to search for CLUES. A clue can be any piece of physical evidence that indicates how the crime occurred. Typical clues are fingerprints, footprints, blood spatter patterns, a weapon left after the fact, DNA evidence, and witness testimony (including video surveillance). Yet the true detective can pick up on clues that others can't: the type of mud on a show, the way a window was left open, how the glass broke the wrong way. The sleuth's superior reasoning skills allow them to ignore false or unimportant evidence and draw larger generalities about the crime from specific details. This process is called DEDUCTIVE REASONING.

While many people imagine a sleuth with a magnifying glass following a set of footprints, crime scene analysis is not the only way to discover clues. The sleuth listens to what every interview says and looks for places where there are factual discrepancies. The sleuth does this in order to determine if the person had MOTIVE, or a reason to commit the crime. Money, love, revenge, and freedom are typical motives that the sleuth must keep in mind when they talk to suspects. In the detective's mind, every rogue may be guilty, so they look for clues that point directly to the motive of a suspect. Suspects are then eliminated if there is not enough evidence to prove their guilt. This process is called INDUCTIVE REASONING.

Being a detective is risky. As most cases start with a murder, the detective is dealing with people who are not afraid to kill whoever gets in the way. Thus, the detective typically encounters several brushes with calamity before the case is solved. Sometimes a hired goon beats them in an alley. Sometimes their office or apartment is ransacked. Sometimes a member of the rogues' gallery also winds up dead. Sometimes the detective is "slipped a mickey" (i.e., drugged) and is left somewhere for dead. Sometimes the detective's loved ones are attacked.

These events heighten the tension and often give the detective a personal stake in solving the case. This also brings out the "alarm" part of the cathartic response to mystery. While cozy mysteries and less intense mystery media like Scooby Doo typically don't have close calls with death or dismemberment, the calamity in these cases is often being caught by authorities and being forced to give up the investigation.

Another way mystery writers heighten tension is by employing misdirection so the reader doesn't solve the case before the detective does. Misdirection bolsters the "curiosity" part of the cathartic response to mystery. Sometimes, the misdirection is a dead end, where a previously promising line of questioning turns out to go nowhere. Other times, writers set up a RED HERRING, or a character or object intentionally used to mislead. For example, in The Lady Vanishes, Iris searches the train for the missing Miss Froy and discovers a woman dressed exactly like Miss Froy--this woman is a red herring intended to throw off anyone who noticed the old woman who boarded the train was gone.

Some writers even prematurely end the first case and add a twist second case at the end. For example, Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep is hired to find a set of photographs Arthur Geiger is using to blackmail Carmen Sternwood, yet after the photos are recovered and the culprits are killed, Marlowe starts investigating a loose end: Sean Regan, a suspect he couldn't find; this leads to a bigger, more sinister mystery. In Dial M For Murder, Tony hires an assassin to kill his wife, and the audience expects the story to be about Detective Hubbard solving her murder; however, she kills her attacker and the plot pivots to Tony framing her for murder instead.