Karma Houdini/Literature


 * One of the Platonic Dialogues specifically brought up a theoretical "loved tyrant" as a Villain with Good Publicity and Karma Houdini to be the counterpart to a Chew Toy and Hero with Bad Publicity, the "hated philosopher" in consideration of whether morality comes merely from reward and punishment, or from some deeper source. (Plato contends, more or less, that the philosopher is still better off because his is the well-ordered rational soul, and has thus found Eudaimonia, true happiness; this in spite of having had his eyes gouged out with a hot poker and being sent to Hell by the Greeks' gods who are just as susceptible to false propaganda as the mortals.)
 * Sylvester McMonkey McBean, the fix-it-up chappie from Dr. Seuss's The Sneetches, and quite likely the very first Karma Houdini we met as young children. Mr. McBean takes advantage of the Sneetches' prejudices again and again, charging them for his service of adding or removing the stars on their bellies. First it was just three dollars, then it was ten dollars, and so on and so on. His punishment? Mr. McBean departs a rich man toward the end of the tale.
 * Although the Karma Houdini's actions did ultimately help the people he conned. (And you can't say the racist group of Sneetches didn't deserve to be messed with...)
 * One could argue that all he did was offer services to the Sneetches. Granted he knew what racist idiots they were ("You can't teach a Sneetch"), but they forked their money over on their own free will. And he did deliver on what he offered.
 * In fact, there's quite a few in Seuss's work. The creators of the Horton Hears a Who! film even used this to justify the Sour Kangaroo being Easily Forgiven, as "Dr. Seuss wasn't in the comuppance business."
 * Done by Mark Twain way back in the 1860s, who satirized the Laser-Guided Karma of children's morality tales in "The Story of the Bad Little Boy"".
 * Judge Holden, of Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. He is probably the worst Complete Monster in fiction, or one of them. To say nothing of the cannibals of The Road, and the three murderous strangers of Outer Dark. McCarthy loves this trope.
 * Anton Chigurh from another McCarthy film/novel No Country for Old Men. Over the course of the book, he kills  His punishment?  . Granted, this all was the point of the story's message, but still.
 * Long John Silver of Treasure Island fame. Disney doesn't seem to remember it, but he escaped scott free with an entire chest of treasure, and was never caught. Not bad, for a month's murder and betrayal. As Dr. Livesay puts it, "I can almost find it in my heart to hope he makes it."
 * Oddly, The Muppets adaptation of the story averts this.
 * Which, considering it's a Muppet movie and the inhabitants are therefore bizarre in the extreme, might be a strange case of going all the way from Karma Houdini to Disproportionate Retribution.
 * Even before Long John, Victor Hugo used this trope in Les Misérables by having the evil Thenardier not only go free, but use the money Marius gave him to become a slave trader in the United States. This example definitely fits the first reason for having a Karma Houdini, sending a message that despite the ultimate happy ending, evil tends to triumph.
 * In the musical, Thenardier and his wife both profit from the revolution and their body-looting, but they do gleefully sing that they're aware that when they die, they'll end up in Hell.
 * Two other characters responsible for messing up Fantine's life, the student who gets her pregnant and abandons her and Bamatabois, the politician who assaults her after she becomes a prostitute, have nothing bad happen to them, and Hugo discusses how both of them consider their behavior nothing more than good-humoured fun.
 * Victor Hugo included another Karma Houdini in The Hunchback of Notre Dame in the character of Phoebus, a womanizing soldier who suffers no ill effects after allowing the woman who supposedly "killed" him to hang for the crime. Most film adaptations of the story have him meet a more "karmically proper" fate and Disney's animated adaptation actually turns him into a hero who gets the girl in the end.
 * Seems Hugo loved Karma Houdinis. Because Rigoletto is based on a theater piece by him named "The King is having fun", and the King of France (Duke of Mantua in the opera) also never gets his comeuppance for what he does to Blanche/Gilda, who also dies there for being a Love Martyr.
 * Another Hugo example: he wrote a poem, Sultan Murad, which is a long description of murders, genocides and other bloodsheds perpetrated by Murad. At the end, Murad goes to heaven for having shown pity for a pig dying in front of a butcher's shop.
 * Seems to be a French thing. When D'Artagnan and The Three Musketeers foil Cardinal de Richelieu's plan, and kill the evil Milady de Winter, D'Artagnan gets to confront him, along with the pardon the cardinal wrote for Milady. The Cardinal's response? To offer D'Artagnan a paper for a promotion as Lieutenant for the king's Musketeers of the guard, with the name left blank. D'Artagnan offers the promotion to his friends, but seeing as they all want to retire he ends up taking it. Richelieu keeps his power and has his Dragon, Rochefort make peace with the heroes.
 * In the novel Richelieu is however not quite the villain as which he appears in most adaptations and it can be argued that for the most part he is acting pragmatically in the best interests of his master, Louis XIII, and his country, even in his intrigue against the Queen Anne, who was after all conspiring with the leading minister of the major enemy power, (unintentionally) goading Lord Buckingham on to wage war against France so that he could take her away from her husband. So you could say that that the real Karma Houdini of this story is Queen Anne, who not from malice, but from folly was indirectly responsible for quite a few otherwise avoidable deaths but ends up with her husband non the wiser and secure in her position.
 * The sequel The Vicomte De Bragelonne has two examples: King Louis XIV steals the hero's girlfriend, causing him to . The King then goes on to dump said girlfriend, live happily ever after and become an important historical figure.
 * In the same novel, Aramis scams Porthos into helping him carry out a complicated scheme to put the King's twin brother on the throne (letting Porthos think they're helping the real King). They're discovered and forced to flee, and
 * In novels where he's the antagonist, Arsène Lupin always gets off scots free. More often than not he outright wins. Of course, the series is named after him, so....
 * Children's books in which the main antagonist receives little-to-no comeuppance for their crimes tend to be at the top of "most frequently banned" lists. The Chocolate War and Blubber are two that immediately spring to mind.
 * Have you seen my tailypo?
 * Lampshaded in The Princess Bride. "Nobody kills Humperdinck. He lives." However, Humperdinck's fate is a bit more like a Fate Worse Than Death, as it is suggested that living in the shadow of his own cowardice is his punishment.
 * The Steve Stirling's notorious Dystopia the Domination of the Draka wins at the end of The Stone Dogs
 * Count Olaf from A Series of Unfortunate Events beat Klaus, tried to force Violet to marry him, burned down several houses, committed an awful lot of murder, stole 27 cakes, and various other nasty things it would take too long to list here. His eventual death was one of the saddest parts of the series, and the Baudelaires visit his grave sometimes. He was probably too silly a villain for anything more brutal than  to happen to him, though.
 * Most of the cast of the series Interestingly, this was doubly subverted by Mr. Sir. In The Miserable Mill, the end implies that he will be in some sort of legal trouble, as it is revealed that it's illegal in their town to use coupons as payment. While he appears to be fine in The Penultimate Peril, he mentions that the forest he uses for boards is running out of trees and he hopes that the meeting he was called for will be about some business deal, implying that even if he did survive, his company was screwed anyway.
 * In Paul Murray's novel Skippy Dies, after  Lori feels as if she did nothing wrong. Also, Skippy's swimming coach gets away with
 * Anybody who has read American Psycho will know that the exploits of Ax Crazy Serial Killer Patrick Bateman are some of the most sadistic and gruesome atrocities ever depicted in literature, yet in the end, because of the emotional emptiness of everyone around him, he received no comeuppance, even after admitting his crimes to his lawyer. It is implied that this is exactly what Patrick didn't want, however, and in the end, even his horrific crimes leave him with nothing but emptiness and despair.
 * Then again, Bateman is just so fucked in the head that it's entirely possible that all those horrific murders never actually took place. For all we know, he just imagined the whole thing.
 * Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard To Find created quite a shock with readers when the villain "The Misfit".
 * Medea from Greek mythology and the play by Euripides. After many, many acts of murder she is rescued from death by the gods and spirited away to become a queen in Athens. Oh, and she ended up married to Achilles in the afterlife.
 * Averted in the Musical Adaptation Marie Christine, where the musical is a flashback told from inside her jail cell, before she is to be executed in the morning.
 * Vernon & Petunia Dursley in the Harry Potter. After 10 years of child abuse that should have gotten both of them in prison all that happens at the end is they are bundled off on a vacation to keep then safe.
 * The Malfoys. The Malfoy family are basically magic Nazis and it's pretty clear we only ever learn a fraction of the frimes they're really committed. But because Narcissa loved her son, they get to go scot-free. Arguably what they went through after incurring Voldemort's displeasure constitutes a punishment (though not a very satisfying one).
 * Word of God says Rita Skeeter is this trope, because she is still working with the Daily Prophet and writing terrible stories about people, hasn't been punished for being an unregistered Animagus, and never receives comeuppance throughout the entire series.
 * Bertolt Brecht's The Threepenny Opera has one of the greatest Karma Houdinis ever, as the Villain Protagonist Macheath who is a rapist and mass murderer is not only reprieved at the end of the play, but also receives a title of nobility and accompanying castle, as well as a life-long pension.
 * Unusually for a John Grisham novel, the villain of The Appeal is an astoundingly successful example. Carl Trudeau gets away with . All because He's most definitely a Magnificent Bastard.
 * Motley in Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. After being, through greed and irresponsibility, one of the primary causes of the near-destruction of the city, and  he gets off scot-free apart from
 * In any Harry Turtledove book, odds are about 50/50 as to whether the nastier characters will be punished or not. This is partly for realism and partly because many of his characters can't be easily quantified as good or evil. Perhaps the most Egregious is his Worldwar series, where Adolf Hitler gets to die of natural causes.
 * The abusive, murderous husband in Holly Lisle's Midnight Rain
 * Dolokhov in War and Peace, an icy, Badass amoral jerk prone to horrible actions. After a lifetime of mischief and general unpleasantness, he even becomes something of a hero of the Russian resistance against Napoleon. Well, he does get shot in a duel in the book's first part, but he eventually recovers.
 * The eponymous villain of the Fantomas novels, delights in committing extremely brutal and sadistic crimes for seemingly no reason at all. Despite the heroes' efforts, he escapes justice, every time.
 * Sherlock Holmes is beaten by a Karma Houdini in A Case of Identity. Holmes, having figured out his game, has confronted the culprit at Baker Street, and he admits his guilt but notes that the law cannot touch him. Holmes is forced to let him go, though not without the slight consolation of wiping the sneer off his face by threatening him with a whip.
 * Subverted in "The Blue Carbuncle," in which Holmes actually lets the thief off without punishment. To be fair, the culprit was genuinely remorseful, and it was fucking Christmas. Holmes also notes that his confrontation with the thief has probably scared the living crap out of him so much that he'll be on the straight and narrow from now on, while sending him to prison—while satisfying at the time—would likely have only hardened his worse qualities and made him a worse person overall.
 * Luciferous in The Algebraist not only gets away after being scared off by the Dwellers and seeing a fleet of ships coming in to retake the star system that he just took over, but the hero never even meets the villain! In the end the villain becomes rather irrelevant to the story despite being what initially sets it off.
 * Variation: General Ebeso in Heroic Proportions
 * In Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn novel Malleus, Osma brings accusations against Eisenhorn that force him to go rogue.
 * Considering this is a universe in which Imperial government policy states "Negotiation is surrender", this isn't surprising.
 * In Dostoyevsky's The Possessed, Petr Stepanovic, Complete Monster, Smug Snake and Manipulative Bastard,
 * Jane Austen frequently uses one of these to keep her Happily Ever After ending from being too perfect:
 * In Sense and Sensibility: Robert Ferrars gets to keep the generous inheritance he unjustly received in his brother Edward's place (his mother cut him off for refusing to make a rich match she had planned) and live a life of wealth, idleness and luxury while Edward and Elinor are forced to scrape by on their combined inheritances and Edward's salary as a clergyman; his wife Lucy, the Clingy Jealous Girl who almost stole Edward from Elinor, eventually uses her natural talent for flattery to earn the acceptance of Mrs. Ferrars, who never has to pay for her constant verbal abuse of Elinor; and the selfish John Dashwood and his wife receive no retribution for their mistreatment of John's sisters and step-mother throughout the book. The heroic couples, of course, are happier with each other than they could ever be with more money or the approval of their snobby relatives. It's also implied that Robert and Lucy are frequently quarrelsome with both each other and with John and Fanny, indicating that although they obtained the material wealth they desired, their characters prevent them from being truly happy.
 * In Northanger Abbey, General Tilney receives no punishment or public censure for his mistreatment of Catherine, and her marriage to his son Henry doesn't happen until he approves of it thanks to an unrelated Deus Ex Machina—the heroine doesn't get what she wants until the person who tried hardest to sabotage her sees it as beneficial to himself too! John Thorpe also gets away with his Malicious Slander of Catherine and her family that started that conflict.
 * Mr. Elliot of Persuasion disappears, never to be punished for ruining Mr. Smith's life and leaving his crippled widow to suffer by refusing to exert the effort to get her the funds from an estate she desperately needs to survive (Captain Wentworth takes care of it later). It's implied he hooked up with the heroine's father's would-be 2nd wife.
 * George Wickham from Pride and Prejudice once tried to seduce Darcy's underage sister in revenge for not giving him more money after he wasted his inheritance, slanders Darcy's name in Hertfordshire, seduces Elizabeth's younger sister Lydia, and runs off with her to London with no intention of marrying her. This being 19th century Britain, when even rumors of premarital sex could ruin a woman's reputation forever. His comeuppance?
 * Authors of works inspired by this generally have him receiving comeuppance of some description. Pride and Prejudice And Zombies has, Bride & Prejudice has Darcy, Lalita, and Lakhi gang up on him, while the Latter-Day version has him . Curiously, Lost in Austen goes the opposite route entirely.
 * At the end of Mansfield Park, mean old Mrs. Norris gets her comeuppance for her cruelty to her niece Fanny and favoritism to her other nieces Maria & Julia.
 * The Apprentice Adept series has a few:
 * Adept Red in the original trilogy. Though we find out later that, she's still directly responsible for several murders - including Adept Blue (Stile's Proton self), her own Proton self, plus Stile's best friend, Hulk - and the knee injuries that ended his horse racing career. This in addition to being one of the nastier Adepts around. Her fate... Exile from Phaze after losing to Stile in a Great Game match, her crimes completely unaddressed.
 * Within the series, however, note that exile from Proton is often treated as a Fate Worse Than Death (probably due to Author Appeal). It also means she'll never be able to go back to Phaze, as Proton is the only place where you can cross over to it. So she's been denied all her power, banished from her home, and kicked into an unfamiliar universe (albeit, admittedly, with a damn good severance package). So she doesn't get off completely without retribution, she's just not punished as thoroughly as some might like.
 * Although he does make a Heel Face Turn in the end, Popov of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six manages to score a deal for immunity after staging a series of terrorist attacks that see half the titular special ops team gunned down by PIRA members and a crippled girl murdered on live television. He also keeps all the money he was paid to stage these attacks (and gets a gold mine to boot). Even though the one attack he wasn't responsible for was the one where the little cancer-ridden girl in a wheelchair was murdered.
 * Les Farley from Philip Roth's The Human Stain gets away with the murder of his ex-wife and her lover. However as the portions of the book shown from his perspective suggest that he will never recover from his psychological scars due to his experiences in Vietnam it's hard to see him as a gloating victor.
 * Wyrn of Elantris is a justified example on several levels - while he is responsible for almost all of the turmoil of the book, he accomplishes this through agents and his only appearance on page is a cameo. Also, Brandon Sanderson still plans on someday writing a sequel, so preserving his Big Bad was rather important. The villain who actually does the evil deeds in question, though, gets a nice Karmic Death courtesy of the resident Magnificent Bastard.
 * The little girl in The Bad Seed. Not in the movie version, however, thank you very much Hays Code.
 * In the Father Brown story "The Sins of Prince Saradine", the title character pulls off a brilliant one of these by
 * Lord Pumphrey of the Sharpe series. Seemingly a fun, cool chap who does what he has to do for the crown of England. Then he  When confronted about this in the latest Sharpe book, he mockingly tells Sharpe he's not sorry in the least and skips out with no retribution in the slightest. Many readers hope he's to get his in future books as he sure deserves it.
 * He is quite the Magnificent Bastard, though.
 * In The Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell, (author of the Sharpe series above) most of the various bad guys get a Karmic Death of some sort, but several get off scot free, such as the Saxon King Cerdic and his champion Liofa. More significantly,.
 * Well, Cerdic is a historical figure, so little could be done there. At least his forces were shattered at the Battle of Badon Hill and his ambition destroyed.
 * Also while Liofa dies naturally, he still dies a horrible death, basically choking in his own shit.
 * In Kerrelyn Sparks' vampire romance The Undead Next Door, Heather's ex-husband is a total dick. He's condescending, constantly calls his ex-wife a whore, belittles her, and is emotionally abusive. He is put under mind control so that he thinks he's a cockroach every time he curses her. In the end, though, he learns nothing from the experience but the mind control is lifted so he can spend weekends with his five-year-old-daughter.
 * Pa in The Color Purple. He regularly rapes (and twice impregnates) his daughter, Celie, and steals the babies the night they're born, then slanders her as loose to explain the pregnancies to her sick and dying mother. Later, he counter-offers her hand in marriage to Mr.____ when he asks for her younger sister, Nettie, because he wants to keep said younger sister to himself; Pa offers him Celie and cites the physical damage he's done as a selling point-- "You can do everything just how you like, and she ain't gonna make you feed it or clothe it." He lives to a ripe old age, dies having sex with his new wife, and never even has to face up to any of the horrible atrocities he visited on his family, let alone suffer any consequences for them. The best we get is
 * Whacked: The main character in the novel by Jules Asner fits the bill, big time.
 * The short story "History and Economics" from Assassin Fantastic has a nasty Karma Houdini: the young Herr Jan Arner confronts the woman he suspects assassinated his sister, only to realize
 * An interesting example from "George Washington Gomez" by Americo Paredes, in that the main protagonist becomes the villain in the last chapter. Another example of doing it to anger the reader, as it illustrates him becoming an Uncle Tom.
 * from The Razor's Edge is a bit of an Egregious example:  This may even be an Exaggerated Trope.
 * A deconstructed trope in ''The Rules of Survival" by Nancy Werlin. The main character Matthew wanted to kill his physically and emotionally abusive mother, especially after she kidnapped his little sister. Instead, he let her be. But she can no longer have custody over her children and can't return home out of fear of being thrown into jail for kidnapping. She would still send letters to her children, sometimes warm, sometimes threatening, but she has no power over their lives anymore. She could live her own life however she wanted, flirty and irresponsible, but as Matthew noted, she is getting older and harsh reality is catching up to her.
 * In Edgar Allan Poe 's story "The Cask of Amontillado", the narrator details how he interred his friend in a wall, and reveals that it's been 50 years since this happened, and that he has gotten away with it.
 * He does state that he had a very good reason for doing it, but never reveals what it is, and we're left to wonder if a mind twisted enough to come up with such a punishment wouldn't also take offense rather more easily than a normal person.
 * in the Tana French novel In the Woods is a Complete Monster who
 * Sir Mulberry Hawk in Nicholas Nickleby by Dickens. He does eventually end up imprisoned, but for debt, and not for
 * In W.E.B. Griffin's The Corps series, Macklin is this in almost every book. In the first book alone, he falsifies reports to put blame on his subordinates, but escapes a court-martial due to them not wanting to draw attention to intelligence matters, and stays in the Corps because of the war scare freezing dismissals. Then he continues his grudge against Ken McCoy by sabotaging his officer's training, escaping a court0-martial (which would probably be for treason under the circumstances) because it would look bad for The Corps to admit having someone like him in it.
 * At times, Brer Rabbit, the Designated Hero of Joel Chandler Harris' Brer Rabbit stories, does far more horrible actions than the villains (Brer Fox, Brer Wolf, etcetera). Not only does he routinely trick his enemies, he also occasionally tortures them, humiliates them, and even murders them. He is never punished for any of these actions.
 * One notable example is 'Mr. Rabbit Nips the Butter'. The story goes that Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and Brer Possum are out in the woods together, when Brer Rabbit steals their butter supply while the others are sleeping. He eats it, and then smears it on Brer Possum. This results in an argument the next day, resulting in a strange 'trial'. A fire is set up, and all three of them have to jump over the fire. The one that fails to make the jump is declared the guilty party. Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox make it over the fire with minor singing, but Brer Possum lands straight in the fire 'Keblam! And dat was the last of ole Brer Possum.'. The little boy to whom Uncle Remus tells the story objects to this injustice, saying that Brer Possum didn't steal the butter. And Uncle Remus replies that 'in this world, lots of folks gonna suffer for other folks' sins.'
 * Josh Pinder in the spin-off Halloween book The Old Myers Place. He at first appears fairly normal, but his status as a spoiled, assholish Rich Bitch soon becomes apparent, and he eventually tries to rape the main character (with it being revealed he tried doing the same to another girl the previous year). You'd think all that would cause Michael to zero in on him like a homing missile, but no, he survives.
 * The first chapter of the first book of Incarnations of Immortality has a great example. Zane goes into a shop where an extremely dishonest shopkeeper sells magic stones. Zane was fated to win the love of an incredibly beautiful and rich woman, but the shopkeeper tricks him into trading this destiny for a magical stone whose powers are all but useless. The shopkeeper gets to marry this beautiful, rich, and loving wife, while Zane is so distressed by losing this chance at happiness that he is Driven to Suicide. We never see this shopkeeper again, so his story ends with him Riding Into the Sunset with the woman whose love he stole from Zane.
 * Blackstar from Warrior Cats. He follows Tigerstar, and does horrible things for him, but when Tigerstar dies, everyone is content to let him become leader of ShadowClan and never mention his horrible deeds again.
 * That could be explained by the fact that he was only doing Tigerstar's dirty work, and that he was turning over a new leaf in becoming leader. While not exactly the most pleasant of cats in The New Prophecy, he seems to have been fully redeemed into a kindly old veteran by Omen of the Stars. He may have even redeemed himself by fighting alongside the three other Clans in the fight against BloodClan.
 * Also Misha from the Expanded Universe novel SkyClan's Destiny. She both  and  . Does anything bad at all happen to her? No, she gets off with just a slap of the wrist.
 * There's also Ashfur, one of the fandom's biggest Base Breakers - his Karma Houdini status is even discussed in-universe. As revenge for Squirrelflight breaking up with him, he.
 * The villain who ordered Amiranda Crest's murder in Bitter Gold Hearts,, not only gets away with the crime, but is 180,000 gold marks richer at the end.
 * One of the worst offenders of this trope is the party members from 1984. They basically try to eliminate all joy in the world and it's implied that
 * It wouldn't be much of a dystopia otherwise.
 * In A Song of Ice and Fire, not only does Littlefinger never get punished for his Chronic Backstabbing Disorder, he's one of the only characters who actually comes out of every single book better than he started it.
 * Ramsay Bolton may count even more than Littlefinger.
 * However, let's remember that there are two more books to be written. Let's hope that they will finally pay for their crimes.
 * Despite his Character Development, if the theory that the gravedigger on the Quiet Isle is him,  seems to have got clean away with his murder of
 * The only time Fisk really get's caught causing trouble in the Knight and Rogue Series is when it's needed as an excuse to get him indebted to Michael. Other than that, he can lie, dance around the police, and break into all the houses he wants. Granted, most of his burglaries are actually for the greater good, even if he's doing them to people who are in no violation of the law. The only reason he doesn't do it more is because Michael ruins any con Fisk tries to run in his presence.
 * In Dead Souls,
 * In the Forgotten Realms short story "Dark Mirror," the village bully of Pengallen keeps a goblin as a slave. When the goblin escapes, he tricks Drizzt into recapturing him. And while Drizzt, who's learned the truth, goes off to get help, he murders the goblin, claims it was self-defense, and intimidates the rest of Pengallen into backing him up when Drizzt gets back. Drizzt, whose acceptance as a drow on the surface is already tenuous, is unable to do anything.
 * In Disgrace, by J.M Coatzee, a woman called Lucy is gang raped by three men. Two of the rapists are never caught—the third and youngest attacker, Pollux, she sees at her neighbour's party. Her father (not exactly the most upstanding person in the novel to say the least, but still her father) freaks out. Turns out Pollux is the neighbour's brother-in-law. The neighbour has known all along that he was one of the attackers, but has been protecting him. Lucy herself refuses to do much, because she doesn't want to "cause trouble" by pressing charges. Instead, she decides to "protect" herself by marrying into the rapist's family, effectively handing her home and land over to them in the process. Worse, her neighbour says that while he'll marry her (polygamously) in the meantime, Pollux will marry her when he's old enough. Adding vicious insult to horrific injury...did we mention that Lucy is a lesbian who would otherwise never have considered marrying a man? It's all tangled up in the politics of Post-Apartheid South Africa, but the bottom line is that the rapists are all Karma Houdinis, beyond the beating the the father gives Pollux (in which Lucy rescues her attacker from her father).
 * In Time Scout, Jack the Ripper half gets away with it.
 * Jack and Roger in Lord of the Flies. While the book is filled with cases of Humans Are the Real Monsters, these two are the worst. Hopefully the Navy averted this trope.
 * In Dale Brown books, Russian President Evils have usually met sticky ends. The Chinese ones? All get away with it. Also, the Iranian general Buzhazi, who survives Shadows of Steel and returns to benefit from an Enemy Mine.
 * Despite everything that he does throughout his series, Harry Paget Flashman always manages to avoid any sort of comeuppance for his crimes and cowardice and is even thought of as a hero in the British Empire. This is not so much the case in Tom Brown's Schooldays.
 * Visser One/Three in the Animorphs series. After K. A. Applegate is through wreaking horrifying havoc on the whimsical world she had created, she let the horrifically evil slug fly off in a fancy ship with its Andalite body completely unharmed.
 * COMPLETELY wrong, at the end of the series, book 54 specifically, Visser One's (or or his Yeerk name Esplin 9466) host is freed, he is put on trial, found guilty and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in tiny purple box, completely devoid of any sense whatsoever, which is the worst fate possible for anyone, not to mention a Yeerk.
 * That's debatable, since one would argue that after killing thousands of innocent hosts, crippling people by cutting off limbs, and causing a war that devastated millions, Visser Three/One DESERVES to die. Tobias even says as much when Jake lets him live.
 * Catch-22 gives us both Milo Minderbender and Aarfy. The first sells the parachutes and medical supplies of his squadron to the enemy to make money, and lets his squadron be bombed (providing location and removing defences) in order to sell cotton and ends the novel as one of the richest men in America, while the later rapes and murders a woman and gets off completely, utterly free, while the police arrest the main character standing next to Aarfy for going A.W.O.L.
 * The series of books focusing on Tom Ripley, Affably Evil Villain Protagonist, showcase his various mideeds which include a string of violent murders, with him always getting away with it.
 * In the Agent Pendergast novel Reliquary, Mrs. Wisher might be considered one. She is largely responsible for.
 * The Volturi from the Twilight series. The last part of Breaking Dawn puts the protagonists in a position to finally wipe them out in a huge battle... but nothing actually happens. The Volturi get to go home and eat more tourists.
 * Actually, depending on one's perspective, this trope could apply to a lot of the main characters in Twilight.
 * Lord Scourge from The Old Republic novel Revan, who gets away with not only literally backstabbing the Exile and never feeling any regret over cold-bloodedly murdering her, but being awarded a medal of honor by Republic forces.
 * The second book in A Simple Survey features a series of games in which the losers die, while the winners receive massive amounts of money. Quite a few of the winners either are criminals to begin with, or commit crimes (usually murder) in order to win.
 * Lord Scourge from The Old Republic novel Revan, who gets away with not only literally backstabbing the Exile and never feeling any regret over cold-bloodedly murdering her, but being awarded a medal of honor by Republic forces.
 * The second book in A Simple Survey features a series of games in which the losers die, while the winners receive massive amounts of money. Quite a few of the winners either are criminals to begin with, or commit crimes (usually murder) in order to win.