Dissecting Mysteries--the many kinds of clues

Yesterday, I sat in a bookstore thinking about mysteries. Kids’ mysteries, particularly. How do they work?

Actually, they vary. Like adult mysteries, some are more about the adventure of solving a case. I’m thinking here of the traditional Nancy Drew mysteries (not the Nancy Drew Clue Book books). First, Nancy has to discover what the mystery is. Further problems occur as she pursues answers. (She often gets knocked over the head along the way—in real life, she would need to see a neurologist for the repeated concussions.) Eventually, in a dramatic chapter, she comes into direct conflict with the villain, triumphs, and the mystery is solved.

By contrast, short mysteries like the Encyclopedia Brown stories have a clear, quickly revealed mystery. It hinges on some particular fact or statement, and in the Encyclopedia Brown stories, the author breaks the story into two parts: the mystery, and the solution. The reader can “match wits” by figuring out how Encyclopedia Brown solved the case, then continue on to the solution to check herself.

Not all short mysteries separate the solution out so explicitly (the Nate the Great stories don’t), but they do generally turn on some one clue, so I started making a list of different kinds of clues.

Some clues link the suspect to the scene of the crime. Sometimes the suspect leaves traces on the crime scene (footprints, a pocketknife with his initials on it), and sometimes the crime scene leaves traces on the suspect (ink stains from the spilled bottle, red mud on his boots).

Some clues involve discovering a falsehood in the suspect’s story. Often the detective knows something that the suspect doesn’t. (Mules are sterile. Oil paintings aren’t framed under glass.) Alternatively, the suspect has forgotten a detail that makes her story impossible. (How did she buy an ice cream when she was in her swimsuit and her money was still in her shorts’ pocket?)

Things that undergo change over time or under special circumstances make good clues. (They also make good weapons in adult mysteries.) One way in which change can be a clue is when it indicates that the suspect is lying about time or about where he has been. (He can’t have been out on the warm porch sipping lemonade for the past hour, because the ice cubes in his glass are clearly fresh from the freezer.)

Another way that change provides a clue is by making something more detectable. (The missing lunch is discovered in someone’s closet because—phew, it’s gone moldy. Spilled lemonade brings out a message written in pH-sensitive ink.) The problem with this kind of clue is that it isn’t to the detective’s credit unless she is the one who correctly identifies the smell, or notices the partial markings and deliberately spills more lemonade to reveal the rest of the message.

I’m sure there are other categories I’ve missed. There’s the locked-room puzzle (how could someone have committed the crime?), as well as the “you had no way to know that unless you did it” categories.Some might be combinations. Something that becomes deadly as it changes over time, or that disappears over time, might be the key to solving the locked room puzzle.

Now that I’ve made this list, I need to come up with an interesting detective and a small world to set the mystery in. But that’s a problem for another day.

Till next post.