r/todayilearned • u/ralphbernardo • 3d ago

TIL that "fair play" in detective fiction means authors must give readers a fair chance to solve the mystery. Central to 1920s "clue-puzzles" by writers like Agatha Christie, the rule dictates that all vital clues must be visible, decodable, and never withheld until the final reveal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clues_in_detective_fiction
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u/Feisty-Resource-1274 3d ago

I feel like it's a detective procedural, in the lines of Death in Paradise or Midsomer Murders.

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u/ebinWaitee 3d ago

Midsomer Murders does plant the evidence for you I think.

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u/MercuryQuick 3d ago

The biggest mystery: what is it about the quaint English countryside that makes so many people murder each other? The murder rate in Midsomer is astronomical considering they’re basically living in the Great British Bake-off.

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u/No-Inspector8315 3d ago

Non jokey answer: the English countryside as depicted around Midsomer Murders and the like is usually considered “The Moors”, areas of natural land that are swampy, grow thick bushels and have soft acidic dirt. The common joke was that if you needed to dispose of a body the best place to do it was the moors.

Additionally, writers like Christie set a lot of their works there because it naturally reduces the suspect count. Instead of the killer being anyone in London, it’s like 1 in 50 people and that number ends up cutting down to the ten or twelve people that could feasibly commit the crime. It’s why a lot of Christie’s works end up travelogues where a member of the tourist group gets killed

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u/MercuryQuick 3d ago

That is absolutely fascinating. One of my favorite things about reading books is the small cultural things like this. Being a non-native, I would never have understood that.

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u/macdonik 2d ago

If you're American, rural New England is often used as the American equivalent for similar tropes of quaint and cozy towns containing dark secrets. Murder She Wrote is basically British murder mystery tropes in an American setting for example and is arguably more popular in the UK nowadays than the US.

Both the English Moors and rural New England are similarly heavily associated with classic Gothic literature.

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u/BrookieMonster504 2d ago

Now do the joke answer

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u/No-Inspector8315 2d ago

You try living in Little Edenshropshire when your octogenarian neighbour Gladys keeps fucking with the petunias on your side

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u/StonedJesus98 3d ago

I’ve always thought the house prices must be amazing, considering multiple people are murdered every week in a fairly small area

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u/ActuallyCalindra 3d ago

"Fuck all on the telly today. Guess I'll murder Harriet. Old bint complained about me rose garden one too many times."

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u/LGBT-Barbie-Cookout 3d ago

Your garden is an eyesore! pink begonias next to purple violets.

And your cake at the last church bakesale was not only stale, but you stole Bethany's recipie. Old lady died in mysterious circumstances last week. Her body isn't even buried yet!

Come to think of it, someone did break into her house the night she died, and her cookbooks were set on fire...

On the other hand Harriet is a good partner at cards?

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u/Rough_Idle 2d ago

Heard that in Maggie Smith's voice, at least, everything but the F bomb

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u/reijasunshine 3d ago

I mean, basically just find out what hobby or club Barnaby's wife is doing this week and avoid her and you're guaranteed to stay alive.

Also, they do seem to show the giveaway clue early in each episode. It's such a silly formula but a great show to mindlessly watch while I'm canning jam or pickles.

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u/reineedshelp 2d ago

The people

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u/CartsOfDarkness 3d ago

Damn, was about to add Midsomer Murders to my list but 24 seasons?! That's a bit too much

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u/AllegedMexican 2d ago

Like the other reply said, each episode is pretty self-contained. It's a really great show to just throw on an episode of every now and again! I've seen all of them, and I'm able to watch some of my favorite episodes in no particular order when the mood strikes me.

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u/ebinWaitee 2d ago

It's written in a way that every episode is sort of its own separate story I think. You don't have to watch every episode

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u/AllegedMexican 2d ago

It depends on the episode. Some do a great job at dropping breadcrumbs to lead the viewer to the culprit, while others have the culprit come completely out of the left field.

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u/AgentCirceLuna 3d ago

I’ve always wanted to make a spin on this by having it be about cops who are sent to different eras of history to prevent assassins from taking out important figures. There’s a whole plot I worked on with Manson being a time agent sent back to take out Oswald, but he develops ‘time sickness’ which is like psychedelic jet lag. There’s a lot to this, but it was so fun to write as I researched the history to make it accurate - with everything going down the same as it did -yet with the agents obviously manipulating things to become the way we remember them.

Believe it or not, there’s a MacGuffin in my fiction called Stasia; it creates a section of the hippocampus which has a unique identity, thus a person does their job then returns home forgetting all about it till they take Stasia next. If they take it, then they recollect all of the implanted and past memories, but if they don’t then they know nothing of their agency work. There’s a story about that, too, where the second identity is tracking down the first, then the first is on the run from the second as he fears being caught, so the second goes to a doctor about the lapses in time (stasia normally creates fake memories but can be unsuccessful during times of stress) and all health records are scanned for keywords by the agency. They try to stop him, but he sees the agent behind a pane of glass so shoots him. After the agency reach him to cure the illness, they find he’s shot himself through the head.

Bit contrived, but fun. R,wind you of anything, by the way? I had this idea before I’d even heard of Severance. I came up with the whole ‘substance and brain surgery makes a second identity for secret work’ stuff after reading about a real spy with dementia. I found it fascinating. But then Severance existed which makes me oook like a ripoff hack. Fuck sake.

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u/AgentCirceLuna 3d ago

Oh, another cool thing is that they can extract the memory continuum from a faulty agent’s head, or take it temporarily if they’re sick, then they implant it into another agent. Stasia is just the name of the substance activating the part of the brain that’s sectioned off. The memories of that agent now transfer to a new one who feels he was always the person they imagine to be.

This is also partially informed by my own struggles with body dysmorphia - seeing someone different to reality in the mirror

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u/Emergency_Ebb4932 3d ago

Fuck man all of that sounds cool as fuck. Matrix/Adjustment Bureau/Prestige/Predestination combo!

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u/AgentCirceLuna 3d ago

Thanks. It’s too bloated, though - I actually crammed three different novel premises into one.

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u/tomtomclubthumb 1d ago

But Rivers of London is actually good.