Overused Murder Mystery Tropes.

It's never twins.

good one R1

OP is Lionel Twain.

R3. Not Lionel Twain. Arthur Bryant.

The cop was in a home for children and was abused. He is getting revenge by killing the abuser/s.

Not quite what I originally meant, but if there is a male and female pair of Feds and police who have been at each other's throats, and a witness is killed because they screw up, the two of them have guilt sex.

Some sort of switch-er-oo of poisoned drinks, two copies of the murder weapon, movie / stage props exchanged for real deadly murder weapons, etc.

A peaceful enviroment SHAKEN to its core by a sudden death that turns out to be a murder. WTF is going on? The place is so peaceful and all of a sudden a murder??? Oh sure, scratch a bit on the surface and the place doesn't seem so peaceful anymore, but it all comes to blow because of some darn murder! It all could have been kept under the surface forever, but that darn murder brought it all to the surface.

The murder triggers a repressed memory in the mind of the lead investigator, who becomes OBSESSED with the case.

R9, that is an excellent one. I just saw it in not one, but two episodes of Jonathan Creek and Winter.

A terminally ill handicapable sidekick is murdered while relaying an important clue!

I just finished watching the Australian show Winter (note when I mentioned Winter at R10, I meant the pilot, The Killing Field.) Boy, is it ever a catalog of cliches:

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERSSPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERSSPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERSSPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERSSPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERSSPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERSSPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERSSPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERSSPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERSSPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

1. There are two unrelated murders

2. Murder 1- the "good girl" did it

3. Murder 2- the cop did it

4. The two lead detectives are brought up before a professional conduct committee by the bad cop trying to derail the case.

5. Vital information is leaked to the press through pillow talk.

6. The witness's best friend is killed because she is wearing the witnesses jacket.

7. Two bickering detectives, one fed/one local police, end up a romantic couple.

8. Two bickering detectives with a history decide they are better partners at work than as a romantic couple.

9. A press conference is staged to draw out the murderer

The dead hooker always had a heart of gold.

Well, R13, you can add that to my list of cliches in Winter because the best friend of the witness was a hooker.

I also forgot, the witness has amnesia due to an accident and cannot remember important details that will solve the murder.

The murderer is the protagonist's (cop, detective, doctor, etc) best friend or favorite relative.

Patsy Ramsey did it!

I was reading Tara French's books but for each book I could guess who done it within the first couple of chapters. Then it took another 300 pages to be proven right.

Jussi Adler-Olsen has a very good mystery series called Dept. Q and his twists and writing are very original. I really liked his book The Marco Effect. I saw him speak at book festival and he was so funny and engaging and said he does not read any books in his genre for fear of copying someone unconsciously. He mentioned that his favorite author is John Steinbeck.

IMO, The best mystery series is the 10 book Martin Beck series which interweaves social commentary into the police procedural and also Detective Maigret by Georges Simenon has interesting mysteries/stories. There are loads of others such as Jo Nesbo and Arnaldur Indirasson, Henning Mankell that go a non obvious/original route to mystery and thriller writing. Yes, I am partial to the Scandinavian mystery/thriller writers.

The cop's spouse did it

The blind/disabled/wheelchair person who isn't as disabled as they appear.

The murderer slips up and tells the cop something only the murderer would know. The cop says "Aha! I never said the victim was strangled"

At least on television, we often see the murder take place at the beginning and then the entire show is about how the murderer is caught by the clever detective. (e.g. Columbo)

The murderer is wreaking a long-delayed revenge for some crime, slight, or other act done to him or her, or to a family members, years ago.

Decades-old material (photos, letters, a diary, other documents) has conveniently been preserved and only now pops up to suggest the solution to the crime.

"Slut" or "town bike" character

Disgruntled politician or dirty cop working for the other side.

The wise old black man. Groundskeeper. Or janitor etc.

Just saw the cliches cited at r22 and r23 on a episode of Endeavour

Yes, R26. There's always a kind, wise, mysterious and lowly Black guy or gal. He or she know secrets, voodoo, witchcraft, and such. Like a Whoopie Goldberg in Ghost.

The first dead person did not actually die and has instead murdered the other subsequent victims.

I like when the Cops think they are being clever, when they aren't.

Detective: "...I didn't say 'murder', how did you know there was a murder?"

Suspect: "You said you were with the homicide department"

Two murders that seem unrelated uncover a massive crime ring/family that the hero must investigate. The killer(s) fall in lust with the hot female medical examiner investigating and almost kill her but she always recovers. And she is a HOT 50 something.

The murderer kills one or two extra people to distract the cops from looking at the relatives of the murderer's target victim.

A witness dies right before he/she was going to reveal the murderer's name.

Here's one you might encounter in Midsomer Murder: the patriarch/matriarch of a upper crust family dies (under mysterious circumstances) and has left a will.

A few options here:

1. There were two or more wills written, possibly to separate individuals who'll all receive a 100% share of the estate.

2. The will has been stolen, and the legitimacy of the testator's progeny is unknown. He could have had children out of wedlock or the wife's been a broodmare to keep up the family's bloodline (the husband is impotent). The later was the backbone of a nutty episode with Joss Ackland and Siân Phillips (Peter O'Toole's first wife).

*Midsomer Murders

R17, I agree about Tana French's books. I always figure out who did it long before the reveal. It's too bad because I actually do like her writing.

Another one I often see is a mystery-within-a-mystery/red-herring storyline. It's usually something like a secret that is being hidden, like someone is into kinky sex or there is an affair, but it is actually unrelated to the murder. There are always lies tied up in this red-herring which confuses the detective. When the detective finally figures the side mystery out and realizes it was unrelated, he then shifts his focus to the right clues and catches the killer.

The detective, in the grand reveal scene, goes after the most likely suspect, in a ploy that is later revealed as intended to lull the real murderer. Once suitably lulled, the real murderer gets terribly flustered when the big guns are turned on him, at which point he makes the critical mistake that shows him to be the real murderer.

It was a cop who did it!

THe suicide note is not a suicide note but a fragment of another note written years before with a different meaning.

R35's example stands out for me.

Almost every murder mystery on French TV since 1991:

- the murder is linked to something happened 20 years ago;

- leading character comes back to town and trigs something that put the murderer into action;

- a local legend from centuries ago seems linked to the murder. But in the end it has nothing to do with it, it was just a plot device to waste half an episode;

- cop and leading character have sex.

r40, that sounds like a lot of shitty American tv, too

Heh...

Everywhere I go people get killed? Does that count?

In books, the young hets in love and the put-upon older spinster never did it.

The readers wouldn't like that.