With a good mystery or crime fiction, it should be IMHO at least in principle something that the audience could figure out beforehand, so therefore it should be something that is at least possible in the real world or under the known rules of the fictional world. So it is really annoying when the solution is something that literally is not possible (or isn’t established in the case of magic/SF tech.)
Case in point is an episode of Monk that I just saw in rerun. There is a search for a missing fortune in gold–skipping to the end, the solution is that the gold is contained in a large number of hand-written journals–the owner of the gold had melted the gold, mixed it with ink, and used that ink to write the journals. It (should) go without saying that pouring ink into molten gold would not result in a barrel full of gold-filled liquid ink–the solution wasn’t anticipated because the solution was literally physically impossible, therefore incredibly dumb.
There was an episode of Perry Mason in which (IIRC) a man was charged with murdering someone with whom he had had an altercation the previous day. The cops arrested him after they found the murder weapon in his trash can.
Of course, Perry was able to show the murder was committed by someone else who had absolutely no connection to either man. How the hell the murder weapon ended up in the suspect’s trash can wasn’t explained until the final scene, where Della asked Perry about it over coffee:
“Oh, just a coincidence. They happen.”
Yeah, right. What a convenient way to tie things together. :smack:
Not specific, but a general trend I’ve seen in CSI: convenient clues.
“That paint chip is from a brand of paint that’s only sold in one paint store in the city.” How convenient!
At paint store: “Did you sell this paint to anyone in the last three weeks?” “Why, yes. Just once. I remember the customer. He came in last Tuesday at 4:45. I have his home address.” How convenient!
I realize they have to dramatize things and do things to keep things interesting, but this trope was used far too often.
The various CSI programs all had eps with important clues given by some variation of enlarging a reflection in a person’s eye or eyewear that showed some kind of identifying detail or person that helped crack the case.
My favorite one was where Grissom and crew identified a gang of convenience store robbers caught on security cameras simply by having the computer remove the masks that completely covered their faces. :smack:
I feel like we could fill up a whole other topic (and we have) about bad tech tropes in crime shows.
None specifically are popping up in my head, but as a lefty, I hate any mystery that gets solved by showing that “such and such action had to be clearly done by a left/right handed man”. I’m not ambidextrous, but there are certain things I do with my right hand because that’s how I grew up with it, like using scissors or a mouse.
I agree that the left-handed trope has been badly overdone. Whenever a mystery mentioned it, you know it will be the major clue.
I was talking less about the databases (which are silly, but do save time) as it was that the database would come up with something that isn’t sold in 200 stores in the greater Las Vegas area (Protip: If you buy paint, buy it at Wal-mart). And that the storekeeper would remember the person who bought it. They have dozens of customers each day; how would the remember one? Hell, photos often aren’t good to identify someone you’ve only seen once.
It’s so bad that in real criminal trials, the DA has to point out to prospective jurors that people don’t remember specific people (especially strangers) that well IRL.
The Monk episode that really bugged me is the one where the creative writing teacher needs to convince the world that Sharona is crazy (the teacher was planning on using the murder method that Sharona had used in a story, and needed to discredit Sharona in case she 1) heard about the death, and 2) somehow decided that the teacher must have done it (the teacher had already destroyed the story (stole Sharona’s laptop? - I forget). Anyway, the plan to discredit Sharona involved having Sharona keep seeing weird things (like a body hanging from the ceiling of a bathroom), and cleaning them up before Sharona could get someone else in to see them.
This drove me up the wall, because it’s such an obviously flawed plan - if Sharona (a nurse!) had touched the body, or screamed while still in the room, or any number of other possibilities, the plan would not only fail to discredit Sharona, but would completely expose the writing teacher’s accomplice. Only if Sharona left the bathroom immediately, and only returned after there’s enough time for the accomplice to get away could the plan even half-succeed (and they pulled similar schemes several more times).
That it would not. On the other hand, in real life, de Hevesy kept some Nobel Prizes out of the hands of the Nazis by dissolving them in aqua regia and keeping the liquid in a bottle on his shelf.
The surprise clue that is not revealed until the very end, when the detective has gathered all the suspects together to reveal the murderer. Hercule Poirot did this in almost every mystery I’ve read or seen.
It seems to me that’s cheating, allowing the detective (and the author) to think they are smarter than us.
