Criminal Mind Games: Difference between revisions

The detectives are on the heels of [[Idiosyncrazy|a very unbalanced criminal]] who has left them a trail of clues to follow -- usuallyfollow—usually a test of their intellect, or their investigatory skills, as though the criminal wants to see if the detectives are worthy of catching him. Not only do the detectives oblige the nutter and follow his breadcrumb trail, they tend to give up all conventional routes of investigation. Usually they are the minutest step behind their quarry right until the end. Sometimes the criminal wishes to distract or trap the detectives, sometimes they want them to uncover some other truth along the way, but usually they're just being a real smartass. Sometimes the clues are hidden in the [[Serial Killer]]'s [[Calling Card]] or in its gruesome [[Finger in the Mail|souvenirs]].

* Subverted in ''[[Death Note]]:'' the master detective L expects Kira to be leaving messages -- butmessages—but Kira is just as smart as he is, so only leaves red herrings to throw L off the scent, or meaningless clues to waste his time.

** This seems to be particularly common for movie and video game versions of Holmes, and less so in the Canon. In particular, he's been sent on scavenger hunts through famous sites in London by thieves ''twice,'' at least -- inleast—in the [[Infocom]] text adventure ''The Riddle of the Crown Jewels,'' and in the more recent ''Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis''. Ironically, Moriarty is the villain and riddler of the former, not the latter.

* [[Agatha Christie|Hercule Poirot]] came up against a [[Criminal Mind Games]] villain {{spoiler|or so it seemed}} in ''The ABC Murders'', where the killer sent him mocking letters before each of the murders.

* ''[[Another Note]]'': The entire book is about trying to solve a very, very, difficult one of these. The killer, [[As Long as It Sounds Foreign|Beyond Birthday]], left several clues leading from one murder to the next. None of the investigating officers could even start to decipher B's clues. Only Naomi Misora -- underMisora—under L's guidance -- andguidance—and an "unprivate" detective named Ryuzaki could help. The clues lead Naomi Misora ''in person'' to find each and every one of these clues to make sure the effort didn't go to waste. {{spoiler|Ryuzaki ends up doing most of the work. He turns out to be the killer who placed the clues there in the first place.}}

* ''[[Numb3rs]]'': Usually the clues require advanced mathematics to unravel, since the show's Aesop is that Maths is useful and mathematicians are like superheroes -- withsuperheroes—with maths. "The Janus List" [[Gambit Roulette|took this to ridiculous extremes]]. Supposedly, the whole point of the exercise was to give the FBI a list of double agents, but the character who had the list made it all but impossible for the FBI to find it. {{spoiler|To be fair, this also hid the list from double (triple?) -agent Colby Granger-- but yeah, routes much more direct were available.}}

* In the season 3 finale of ''[[Psych]]'' Shawn faces the Yin-Yang Killer, who only rarely resurfaces to screw with star cops -- bycops—by kidnapping a victim and leaving stopwatches and clues, with the victim dying when the star cop fails to solve the clues in time. When the Yin-Yang killer targets Shawn, Shawn gets caught up in the killer's clues, and {{spoiler|then he realizes that is what the killer wants and pretends to give up.}} Eventually the killer is revealed to be {{spoiler|a very crazy looking Ally Sheedy.}}