I have figured out my thing with murder mysteries, after many years of trial and error, and it’s this: stop trying to figure them out. Never once in my murder mystery-watching career – and I was a child raised on Jonathan Creek! I should be good at this! – have I correctly guessed the murderer. Here’s why: you’re not meant to be able to. The whole point about being a storyteller is you’re just making silly tricks up, and that goes triple for a fictional murder mystery.
Every time you pin a murder it can be wiggled out of by a sleight-of-hand of story. “Oh, and by the way this woman you’ve never met before actually saw the whole thing” – mmm, useful, thanks. “There was no murder, they fell” – ah yes, very enjoyable way to spend my Sunday evening. Thanks for nothing. The way to enjoy murder mysteries, I have decided, is to turn your brain off entirely and let the nonsense wash over you. It’s just a story. Stop trying to guess.
