I know it would get pretty boring if every cop or mystery show took place in New York or L.A. but as a result there are places portrayed with a ridiculous murder rate. The Oxfordshire of Inspectors Morse and Lewis runs red with blood on an almost nightly basis. Cabot Cove was the murder capital of the world but even Jessica had to travel to find more bodies. To me the most ridiculous example is Absaroka County, Wyoming where Sheriff Longmire is stacking up bodies like cordwood. What are some others?
Recently my wife and I have been binge-watching Midsomer Murders, set in the fictional English county of Midsomer (actually filmed in various towns and villages throughout Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire). Over 110 episodes, since 1997, those poor cops have been dealing with grisly and grotesque murders in the midst of village fetes, bird-watching societies, and open-air art classes on the village green. And on market day, too!
It’s tough out there on the mean streets of rural England.
Miss Marple used to say that those picturesque little English villages hid some dark and dirty secrets.
I loved that show The Father Dowling Mysteries with Tom Bosley and Tracy Nelson. It was set in Chicago, but his particular parish, St. Michael’s, seemed to be where all the murders in Chicago were concentrated.
Even hokier than Midsomer Murders (which I quite like) is Rosemary and Thyme. Calling those two in to redo your garden or landscape your estate is at least as bad as inviting Jessica Fletcher to your cousin’s wedding!
PBS Masterpiece Mystery featured several movie-length mysteries all set on a Native American reservation, starting with Skinwalkers. There’s only three episodes that I know of, but there are multiple victims, so the per-capita body count has got to be off the charts.
The town Haven from the TV show of the same name should, by all rights, have been completely depopulated by the end of the series. The basic plot was that people in the town were subject to “The Troubles”, which usually meant that every week, some unassuming townsperson would develop supernatural powers and kill multiple people in gruesome ways. The local law enforcement would then try to figure out who it was and, I dunno, talk them down, or shoot them, or whatever.
But the point is, this was a tiny fishing village and the body count was enormous. I don’t know if they ever answered the question of why folks stuck around, because living there was like living in a Hellmouth.
Which brings us to Sunnydale, CA, which is another delightful town that had a surprising number of deaths, primarily among the high school residents. Not exactly sure how they ever filled out their graduating classes.
My favorite nod to that was when it was established the school newspaper had an obituary section.
I think supernatural settings should be in a different category.
I’ve been watching Midsomer Murders lately too, and between that and some of Agatha Christie’s mysteries, I am convinced that a village fete is the most dangerous place one can be. Absolute death traps!
I know her husband’s a policeman, but have you also noticed how often in the course of her hobbies or ordinary daily activities Joyce Barnaby stumbles upon a body, witnesses a murder, or coincidentally makes friends with a murderer on a case Tom is investigating? (That, or she’s another Jessica Fletcher in training.)
Very bad adaptation of some excellent books by Tony Hillerman. Bear in mind that the actual square miles covered by these police officers is huge, and (if I remember the books correctly) there weren’t that many bodies per book. The series spans something like 35 years, so one approximately every 2 years, and the original main detective is now mostly retired; the books are being continued after Hillerman’s death under the auspices of his daughter.
At first glance, it seems ridiculous that Dexter has so many murderers and serial killers encountered every week, even if it takes place in a decent-sized city and the protagonist works in a police station.
Then you remember it takes place in Florida, and all of a sudden it seems to make realistic sense…
Those two dig up more bones than an archaeologist.
Dodge City, Kansas only had about 1,200 people at the time Gunsmoke took place, pardner, but Marshall Matt Dillon himself killed 145 people. Granted, the marshall was shot 59 times, so he had some justification. But think about the implications of the local law enforcement killing more than 10% of the population.
And since everyone of those 145 desperados got what was coming to them, one can only imagine the carnage they inflicted!
I think you have to presume a considerable turnover of population.
I never watched the show these clever remarks refer to, but I was amused to find this MapQuest of the town in question Sunnydale CA check out the description!
I keep seeing this thread in the thread lists and I keep thinking to myself “the Death Star”
On the next Death Star Murder Mysteries, Emperor Palpatine fell down the shaft…OR DID HE?". Tonight at 9, 8 Central.
I know that lots of people spend their final days in hospitals, but Community General Hospital, workplace of Dr. Mark Sloan on Diagnosis: Murder, seemed to have more than its fair share of mysterious deaths…
There’s a small, isolated island off the coast of South Devon where the murder rate is 90%, despite the presence of two soldiers, a police inspector, and a retired justice of the peace.
(The other 10% was suicide.)
Hawaii Five-O is pretty unrealistic. It treats Honolulu like it’s a major metropolis like Los Angeles or New York and has a commensurate crime rate. But Honolulu is a small city; it has less people than Witchita, Kansas. And its crime rate is low.
I love Leslie Meier’s Lucy Stone mysteries series, but Tinker’s Cove, Maine must be second only to Cabot Cove in Maine’s murder rate.
ETA: Word Up: Never stay in a Maine town whose name ends in “Cove”.