Revealing Coverup: Difference between revisions

An occasional subversion is someone organizing a '''Revealing Coverup''' because they ''want'' to keep the heroes interested. Compare [[Kansas City Shuffle]].

 

 

{{examples|suf=s}}

* Used to extreme effect in the eleventh volume of ''[[The Kindaichi Case Files]].'' The killer followed Kindaichi throughout the two-parter mystery, killing people after they provided messages which was supposed to lead to a manuscript he wanted to keep from being published. What neither the killer nor Kindaichi realize until after the last message was a dead end is that the message itself was irrelevant. The real clue was hidden in the order of the now dead message givers. Because of the murders meant to silence them, the newspaper following the last murder would inevitably print them in order of killing, providing the same clue to ''everyone'' who read the paper, guaranteeing ''someone'' would figure it out before the killer could and prompting a desperate grasping of the [[Villain Ball]].

* In ''[[One Piece]]'', the denizens of Punk Hazard try to trick Smoker out of investigating their island by putting out toxic gas. The idea was to make him think it was still uninhabitable after a prior accident. Unfortunately, Smoker knows the history of that island and this only makes him ''more'' suspicious.

* In an episode of [[Detective Conan]] a criminal attempts to acquire a demo tape that implicates him in a murder. It's especially note worthy that before the criminals attempts to acquire the tape Conan thought nothing special was on it. (He had listened to it previously in hopes of finding out why the artist was being stalked.)

 

* The [[Jack the Ripper]] conspiracy graphic novel ''[[From Hell]]'', and the real-life Prince Albert Victor-centric conspiracy theory it dramatizes, hinges on the monarch of the world's most powerful nation being so threatened by the possibility of unsubstantiated (though true) allegations from four London prostitutes that she has them all murdered.

** Not only murdered, but killed in such a needlessly elaborate and gruesome way that it inevitably attracts the attention of half the country, never mind the obsessive detective.

 

== [[Fan Works]] ==

'''Markmor''': You were dealing with a businessman. What do you think he does? He buys and sells things, that's what he does.

'''Markmor''': At times like this I could almost justify destroying you, talented or not. Brain damaged is what you are. }}

 

== [[Live Action TV]] ==

* One episode of ''[[The Good Guys]]'' has the [[Villain of the Week]] set up a bank robbery to be performed by expendable, unarmed, unwitting henchmen (including [[Minion with an F In Evil|"the worst getaway driver in the business"]]). This was only meant to draw the entire Dallas police force to that location so that he could set off explosives on the bridge between the cops and his ''real'' target, a jewelry store. {{spoiler|Jack and Dan figure out the plot just in time [[Spanner in the Works|to scare the thieves off]], but aren't able to catch them. Their presence does make the legitimately dangerous crooks wonder if their [[Manipulative Bastard]] boss had set ''them'' up to be the fall-guys, however, leading them all to kill each other off.}}

* An episode of [[Republic of Doyle]] begins with Des being arrested ([[Noodle Implements|while wearing a snorkel]]) after robbing a convenience store and a male strip club while drunk, and leading every police officer in St. John's across the city to distract them from the ''real'' target that evening, a priceless statue.

** Pulled earlier {{spoiler|by [[Spy Master|Garak]] when he sees a Romulan assassin on the station. Garak blows up his own shop to make Odo think the assassin did it, but Odo discovers otherwise that the assassin works with ''poisons'' not explosives.}}

*** And then {{spoiler|the assassin gets killed anyway as though someone was covering their tracks, which only stokes Odo's curiosity further. By the time Odo and Garak figure out what's going on, the Romulans and Cardassians are making a joint first-strike on the Dominion.}}

* In a variant compressed into less than five seconds, the team on ''NCIS'' needs to locate some terrorists hiding among any of a dozen warehouses. Knowing they're pressed for time, Gibbs whips out a shotgun and blasts a nearby street light, which causes the terrorists' rooftop lookout to immediately open fire and give away the bad guys' position. Had he had the sense to quietly keep his head down, the team would've been too late to stop them.

 

 

== [[Video Games]] ==