What is a mystery?

2. What is a mystery? • A secret, a riddle, a puzzle • Essential ingredients are an element of crime mixed with an element of detection • You have to find out the secret, and solve the riddle or puzzle to find the criminal or enemy and crack the case

3. Key Elements in Mysteries • Introduction of the characters • Presentation of the mysterious or criminal situation/setting • Suspects, motives, clues are given, including “Red Herrings” • Addition of the subplots/distractions • The denoument or discovery of the killer/culprit

5. Cozy Mystery • Littl

9. Quick Check #1 On your note page in the corresponding section, answer the following: • What is a Private Eye? • How many synonyms can you name for Private Eye?

11. Vocabulary • Alibi – the excuse an accused person uses to show he or she was not at the scene of the crime • Breakthrough – an advance or discovery that helps solve the crime • Clue – an object or piece of information that helps solve the mystery • Deduce – to use logical reasoning and thinking to infer information • Evidence – a thing or statement that helps to prove who committed the crime • Hunch – a guess or feeling not based on facts • Interrogate – to ask questions or seek information from people • Lead – information or clues concerning the case • Motive – an inner drive that causes a person to do something or act in a certain way • Perpetrator – someone who is guilty of committing a crime • Sleuth – an investigator; another name for a detective

12. Vocabulary • Suspect – a person who has a motive to have committed the crime • Suspense – a feeling of tense excitement about something unknown • Witness – someone who saw something related to a crime

13. The Red Herring A red herring is a false clue or lead. The phrase means “camouflage” and comes from the process of curing a herring (type of fish). When herring is salted and smoked slowly over a wood fire, it turns a dark reddish brown color and gains a strong flavor and scent. The smell is so strong that it overwhelms other scents. According to some old tales, red herrings were pulled across the trail of hounds to confuse and throw them off the trail. Sometimes writers of detective fiction deliberately “fake-out” readers by planting misleading clues known as red herrings.

14. Sometimes sleuths need help! Some sleuths receive assistance from sidekicks who are either paid helpers or friends who help. These sidekicks serve as “sounding boards” for the sleuth to explain how certain bits of detection are done. If the sleuth is not, in some way, connected to law enforcement, one of these characters usually is. The sidekick is sometimes a pet or an animal.

15. Quick Check #2 On a separate piece of paper, list as many sleuths who have sidekicks you can think of.

16. Scooby Doo, where are you? Sometimes sleuths work in pairs or in groups. For example, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes has a partner in Dr. Watson. Similarly, the Scooby Doo gang has five very different personalities to solve mysteries. As in Murder She Purred, the Scooby Doo gang of detectives has a personified animal in their midst. Scooby, the dog, is the sidekick who aids in the solving of the mysteries for “the gang”.

17. Sleuths and sidekicks • Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson • Nick and Nora Charles • Frank and Joe Hardy • HerculePoirot and Arthur Hastings • Nancy, Bess and George • Scooby Doo and the Mystery Inc. Gang

18. Three Rules of Crime Solving Motive – the prime suspect must have had a reason to commit the crime Means – the prime suspect must have had a way to commit the crime Opportunity – the prime suspect must have had a chance to commit the crime

19. Happy mystery solving!