This week: Under suspicion Edited by: Arakun the Twisted Raccoon  
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Quote for the week:
"Mystery spread its cloak across the sky.
We lost our way.
Shadows fell from trees.
They knew why."
~From "House of Four Doors" by the Moody Blues |
I recently read a strange line in an account of a criminal investigation: "He was a suspect, but he had not done anything suspicious."
I think what the writer was trying to say was that some people are automatically suspects because of their relationship with the victim. For example, in a murder investigation, the victim's spouse and other family members are automatically suspects until they are cleared. Anyone who had something to gain from the crime, such as a business partner, is also suspected. The person who discovered the crime scene might also be initially suspected, since they might have tried to throw suspicion away from themselves by discovering and reporting the crime.
Apart from automatic suspects, a character usually has to do something that raises a red flag with investigators in order to be considered a suspect.
Suspicious behavior can seem very damning, such as running away from the crime scene, lying about whereabouts at the time the crime was committed, or destroying potential evidence.
Other suspicious behavior can be more subtle and might initially seem unimportant. Someone who never misses work might call in sick that day. A character who is usually well dressed and fashionable might be seen wearing clothes that do not match.
In mystery story, there are usually two groups of suspects, those who are suspected by the characters doing the investigation and those who are suspected by the readers. These groups will probably overlap, but may not be identical. For example, the detectives might have one prime suspect while the readers are sure that person did not do it. While the detectives may not initially suspect a kindly neighbor who seems eager to help with their investigation, the readers might sense something "off" about that person the whole time.
Our job as mystery writers is to raise the readers' suspicion of the guilty party without making them seem to obvious, while also raising false suspicion of several other characters that will eventually be explained away by evidence. Even in a story where the real guilty party is meant to be the last person the readers will suspect, there need to be subtle clues.
Something to try: Write a mystery story where the detectives do not suspect the guilty person until the end.
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Mystery: December 10, 2025 Issue [#13488]
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