Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: Difference between revisions
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Someone investigates a minor crime, or possibly something as major as murder, but finds something much bigger going on behind it. The first crime might be part of a [[Revealing Coverup]], or it might be just a [[Red Herring]]. This is extremely common in crime fighting action films where the plot is more about building up a lead in from normal life and confronting the big secret; in other fiction there might be all manner of twists, turns and dead ends before it all links up. This is a staple of the detective variety of Film Noir.
Some of the more complex [[Xanatos Roulette
Sometimes the [[Anti-Villain]] is [[The Reveal|revealed]] to be a [[Complete Monster]]; in other cases the [[Anti-Villain]] teams up with the [[Heroes]] to fight the [[Big Bad]].
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Not to be confused with [[Wanted Meter]].
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[
* ''[[Detective Conan]]'' has the Black Organization. It looked like a simple case of blackmail, but they're actually an elite group of murderers that owns huge biological research facilities.
* Subverted in ''[[Ghost in the Shell]]: Stand Alone Complex'', where the murder of a policeman who discovered illegal surveillance devices appears to bring the elite hacker Laughing Man out into the open, but it turns out the guy was an imitator. However, later it's played as straight as a laser: hacker in government-run halfway house --> conspiracy involving Japan's entire military industrial complex. [[Wall of Text]] - watch the freakin' anime!
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* ''[[Chinatown]]'': Who killed Hollis Mulwray?
* ''[[L.A. Confidential]]'': What triggered the Night Owl Massacre?
* ''[[Cellular]]'' starts off as trying to trace a woman who was kidnapped by unknown men but soon found out some of the cops in involved in a greater plot
* ''[[Ace Ventura]]: Pet Detective'': Dolphin kidnapping -> murder, kidnapping, and attempted murder of NFL star Dan Marino.
** ''[[Ace Ventura]] 2: When Nature Calls'': Bat kidnapping -> plot to wipe out two indigenous African tribes and seize their land.
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* ''[[Hudson Hawk]]'': Theft of several items -> using a gold-making machine to destroy the world's economy.
* ''[[The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension]]'': Theft of the Oscillation Overthruster and kidnapping Penny Priddy -> the Red Lectroids' plot to return to Planet 10 and conquer it, leading to a threat by the Black Lectroids to start [[World War III]].
* ''[[Big Trouble in Little China]]'': Kidnapping of a girl with green eyes -> David Lo Pan's plan to rule the universe from beyond the grave.
* A common trope in the ''[[James Bond (film)|James Bond]]'' series:
** ''[[Dr. No]]''. Murder of a British agent --> Dr. No's SPECTRE operation to destroy American missiles.
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** ''[[A View to a Kill]]''. Using steroids in horse races --> destroying Silicon Valley (though these two plot points don't directly connect)
** ''[[The Living Daylights]]''. A faked sniping attack on a fleeing general --> attacks on British agents and a weapon smuggling network in the middle of the war between U.S.S.R. and Afghanistan.
** ''[[
** ''[[Tomorrow Never Dies]]''. An unusually fast newspaper article on a ship sinking --> starting a war to gain exclusive media rights in China.
** ''[[The World Is Not Enough]]''. Murder of a prominent businessman --> forcing a nuclear sub into meltdown and contaminating 90% of the world's oil supply.
** [[Daniel Craig]]'s Bond gets one that spans ''two'' movies: elimination of bomber-for-hire --> [[The Reveal]] of an ''[[NGO Superpower]].''
* ''[[Judge Dredd (film)|Judge Dredd]]'': Murder of an investigative reporter --> assassination of the Judges' Council and a coup d'etat.
** ''[[Dredd]]'': Triple homicide -> a city-spanning drug manufacturing and distribution operation.
* ''[[Lethal Weapon]]'': A simple suicide -> a heroin-smuggling operation run by Vietnam War special forces troops.
** ''[[Lethal Weapon 2]]'': A traffic stop (of a car with a trunk full of Krugerrands) -> an international drug smuggling conspiracy by South African government officials.
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** ''[[Lethal Weapon 4]]'': A ship full of smuggled Chinese immigrants --> A plot to sneak four Chinese Triad bosses into the country.
* ''Looker'': Murder of female models -> company conspiracy to brainwash customers with subliminal advertising.
* ''[[Men in Black (film)|Men in Black]]'': Disappearance of a man after encountering a UFO and a suicide -> theft of a galaxy and possible destruction of the Earth.
* ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]'': a private eye hired to take some dirty pictures -> the murder of Marvin Acme and R.K. Maroon, probate fraud and the attempted destruction of Toontown and genocide of its residents, the Toons.
* ''[[The Fugitive (film)|The Fugitive]]'' (Movie version). Murder of Kimble's wife -> drug company conspiracy to market a deadly medical drug to an unknowing public.
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* ''[[Changeling (film)|Changeling]]''. The kidnapping of Walter Collins -> The vast corruption in the LA police department
* Somewhat subverted in [[Strange Days]] - the plot ''looks'' like it's building into a huge far-reaching conspiracy, but {{spoiler|actually a lot of that is just the guy behind the first crime trying to misdirect the hero.}}
* ''[[Star Trek: Insurrection]]'': Data goes [[
* [[Kiss Kiss Bang Bang]]: [[Lampshade Hanging|''"Your case and my case... are the same fucking case"'']].
* Averted in ''[[Pulp Fiction]]''. The Wolf asks Jules and Vincent if there is anything wrong with the car, which they had just cleaned thoroughly, so that if he is pulled over by the police, he knows any problems to talk about - and the police won't have a reason to inspect the vehicle, and find any hint of the body or blood the Jules and Vincent had spent time cleaning.
== Literature ==
* The [[Dresden Files]] does this almost [[Once Per Episode]].
** ''[[Storm Front]]'': Hired to find a woman's missing husband and help the police with a murder -> uncovering a [[Axe Crazy]] practitioner of [[Black Magic]].
** ''Summer Knight'': Investigating a suspicious death -> {{spoiler|averting a faerie war}}.
** ''Death Masks'': Recovering a stolen religious artifact -> {{spoiler|preventing a souped-up Black Plague.}}
** ''Dead Beat'': Finding a certain book for a vampire -> preventing some necromancers from saying [[A God Am I]].
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* [[Sherlock Holmes]] stories had a lot of this.
** "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons". A madman is stealing Napoleon busts and smashing them -> The recovery of a stolen pearl.
** "The Blue Carbuncle". Man loses his Christmas dinner -> The recovery of the title stolen gemstone (seriously).
** "The Red-Headed League". Man was member of an exclusive club for only red heads -> A bank heist using underground tunnel.
** "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches". A woman gets a too good to be true job offer -> Turns out that she was there to take the place of the daughter of his employer who is imprisoned somewhere in the house.
* Any novel by Jonathan Kellerman.
* In ''[[Rainbow Six]]'', the FBI carries out a search for a missing woman, believing it to be part of a kidnapping or serial killing, only to find {{spoiler|a plan to wipe out most of humanity}}.
* ''[[
** ''[[
** ''[[
* [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]'s ''[[Vorkosigan Saga|Komarr]]'' starts with the investigation of a collision between a freighter and an orbital terraforming mirror. It makes a detour to a modest embezzlement scheme before {{spoiler|settling on a plot to eliminate the only wormhole link between Barrayar and the rest of the populated galaxy that would actually, due to incomplete analysis of the underlying science, result in the destruction of at least one space station with several thousand residents and transients aboard.}}
* In the [[Greg Egan]] novel ''[[Quarantine (novel)|Quarantine]]'', an investigation into the disappearance of a severely developmentally delayed woman from a care home eventually reveals a plot to {{spoiler|radically alter the nature of reality at a quantum level}}.
* ''[[Discworld]]'' City Watch novels:
** ''[[
** ''[[
** ''[[
* ''The Barsoom Project'': Electronic tampering with a high-tech LARP -> multiple acts of lethal sabotage in support of covert corporate takeover scheme
▲== Live Action TV ==
* This appears to have been the case for {{spoiler|Beckett's mother's murder}} in [[Castle]]. Decade-old murder of a lawyer -> {{spoiler|wide-ranging corruption and conspiracy, the full extent of which has yet to be revealed.}}
** Also, murder of a taxi driver -> {{spoiler|plot to detonate a dirty bomb in New York.}}
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** "The Homecoming Job". Coverup of a friendly fire investigation -> multi-billion-dollar money-laundering scheme.
** "The Snow Job". Negligent home contracting job -> nationwide foreclosure-related fraud.
** "The Stork Job". Spanish Prisoner scam with orphans -> weapons smuggling.
** "The Gone-Fishin' Job". People being scammed by fake IRS agents -> anti-government militia planning a terrorist attack
* ''[[Weeds]]'' subverts the hell out of this early in the third season. The second season [[Cliff Hanger]] ends with Silas arrested for petty vandalism with a trunk full of marijuana {{spoiler|Celia drives away in his car before the cop sees it}}, and a few episodes later a DEA agent shows up at the Botwins' door while they're bagging product {{spoiler|and never gets in the door so he doesn't notice it}}.
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* This has happened frequently on [[CSI: Miami]].
* This seems to be the point of the [[Buddy Cop Show]], ''[[The Good Guys]]''. An old [[Noble Bigot with a Badge]] [[Cowboy Cop]] [[Odd Couple|is paired with a young]] [[By-The-Book Cop]] and sent to investigate minor crimes (vandalism, shoplifting, etc.) to [[Reassignment Backfire|keep them out of trouble, but the duo almost always stumble across something much bigger]] (drug smugglers, car theft ring, etc.)
* Pretty much every [[Myth Arc]] episode of ''[[The X-Files]]'', and several Monster of the Week ones as well.
* ''[[The Shadow Line]]'': The death of a drug baron --> {{spoiler|A [[Government Conspiracy]] using drug money to fund police pensions.}}]]
* ''[[Criminal Minds]]'': DEA raid on a suspected meth lab --> an impending terrorist attack using nerve gas.
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* ''[[Bones]]:'' A recovered skull --> A cannibalistic serial killer {{spoiler|who ends up recruiting Zack as his apprentice.}}
* Happened on occasion in ''[[Due South]]''. One notable example was Frasier and Vecchio stopping to ticket a man who had parked in a fire lane, only to discover the guy's trunk was full of illegal firearms.
== Tabletop Games ==
* One [[Shadowrun]] supplement, about Lone Star Security, mentions how police in the Robbery division often wind up investigating major crimes: ones that'd started out ''looking'' like a simple robbery due to cover-up efforts by the perpetrators.
== Video Games ==
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** In the second case of the first game, trying to solve the murder of your mentor leads to you discovering {{spoiler|a massive blackmail chain}}.
* In ''[[Police Quest]] 3'', the endgame involves the investigation of a house linked to a series of murders. When it turns out that the place is fortified, the player must go back to the courthouse and get authorization to use the departmental battering ram, which uncovers a cocaine manufacturing ring.
* ''[[Mass Effect]]'': An unprovoked attack on a human colony -> {{spoiler|The destruction of all sentient life by [[Eldritch Abomination
** The sequel gives us: Human colonies disappearing -> {{spoiler|Creation of an [[Eldritch Abomination]].}}
** The ''Arrival'' DLC has: Admiral Hackett's friend Dr. Kenson has been kidnapped by Batarians -> {{spoiler|Eldritch Abominations will arrive and begin the galactic extermination in 2 days.}}
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** In the fifth game, an [[Interquel]] that [[Gaiden Game|focuses on Daxter]], he's just trying to make a living and figure out how to rescue Jak, only to to uncover the brewing invasion plot by the Metal Heads.
** In the sixth game, Jak, Daxter and [[A Day in the Limelight|Keira]] set out to find more eco and restore balance to the world, but things [[It's Short, So It Sucks|quickly]] escalate into stopping a power-hungry madman.
* ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'': [[Save the Princess]] -> Prevent
* ''[[The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall|Daggerfall]]'': Exorcise a walking spirit and deliver a letter -> Shape the future of [[The Empire]].
* ''[[Dragon Age 2]]'': Sneak a free Qunari mage out of Kirkwall -> {{spoiler|Halt a Chantry plot to spark open conflict between humans and Qunari}}.
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* The standard plot of [[Tex Murphy]] games. Tex gets a small, simple gig (find my missing friend) and it turns into a save the world scenario.
* ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'': Find the man that shot you and stole the package you were supposed to deliver, get said package back, and finish the delivery -> decide which of the factions vying for control of New Vegas and the rest of the Mojave Wasteland emerges triumphant, or [[I Can Rule Alone|make your own power play and take over for yourself]].
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[American Dad]]'': Parodied, and played straight. Steve does a research project on peanut butter and discovers a secret conspiracy dating back to the days of Abraham Lincoln. The parody occurs earlier in the episode in the form of a [[Noodle Incident]] where Snot claims that he gave up sleuthing after 'the case of a missing bike horn turned into a double rape homicide'.
* 1973-74 ''[[Superfriends]]'' episode "The Planet Splitter". The theft of diamonds weighing 100+ carats -> A plot to split Cygnus Uno, a planet in another solar system.
== Real Life ==
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* A foiled burglary at an upper class hotel uncovered attempts to influence the US election that go right up to the [[Richard Nixon|POTUS himself]]. As well as adding [[Scandalgate|a new suffix to the English language]].
* Not exactly the same, but in 1999, a Vietnamese American had police protect his video rental store which was flooded with protesters who didn't like his North Vietnamese flag and picture of Ho Chi Minh. While protecting the store owner from protesters, police discovered the owner's video piracy operations and arrested him.
** Ahem, there not being a North Vietnam around for 25 years at the point
*** Using that flag is [[Serious Business]] for most Vietnamese Americans, who are mostly exiles and refugees from the South and regard the red flag with the yellow star as a usurper's symbol; they tend to hate the current government of Vietnam with all their might and are usually virulent anticommunists. The One True Flag (for them) is the yellow one with three thin red stripes, and to Hell to anyone who displays the other one.
* The Los Angeles Police Department '''Rampart Scandal''' in the late 1990s, which was the inspiration for the movie ''[[Training Day]]'' and the TV series ''[[The Shield]]'', started with the arrest of one police officer for stealing cocaine, and ultimately implicated more than 70 officers in serious misconduct, as well as contributing to the Police Chief, District Attorney, and Mayor of Los Angeles all eventually being not re-appointed or re-elected.
* Initially, the only question people had about Enron was whether its stock was overpriced. People trying to figure that out found themselves in the incomprehensible accounting practices Enron used, which led to more questions and then KABOOM!
* They certainly already knew about the crime, but Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was initially arrested for driving without license plates and (as the officer noticed on pulling him over) having an illegal gun.
** Similarly, 'Son of Sam' David Berkowitz was arrested because his car had received a parking ticket for being parked next to a fire hydrant. When the NYPD as part of its routine legwork checked every parking ticket in the area of and on the night of the most recent 'Son of Sam' killing to see if any of them matched the make, model, and color eyewitnesses reported for the killer's car, they had his name, license plate #, and address right there.
* The Manson family was originally arrested for car theft and it wasn't until one of them bragged to a fellow inmate that they were implicated in the string of high profile murders occurring at the time.
* In December
* Accountants are taught to consider even tiny discrepancies in financial data important, as even the smallest shortfall can be a clue to large-scale embezzlement or fraud.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:The Index Is Watching You]]
[[Category:Crime and Punishment Tropes]]
[[Category:Plots]]
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