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Little Old Lady Investigates: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|''"Policemen asking questions are being policemen, but little old ladies asking questions are just being [[Obfuscating Stupidity|little old ladies]]."''|'''Miss Marple''', ''[[Miss Marple]]''}}
There's a subgenre of [[Mystery Fiction]] called "Cozy Mysteries", a prevalent trope of which is the little old lady investigator. She is an older lady, usually retired, usually a [[Cool Old Lady]], who has a knack for solving mysteries and who is [[Always Murder|always solving murders]] [[
This trope makes a perverse sort of sense. Old women are '''supposed''' to be nosy, and attract little attention when they are. A grandmotherly type may be a lot better at prying relevant but embarrassing details from suspects than the gruff policeman. Finally, she is frequently protected by [[Even Evil Has Standards]]: who would dare to off the nice old lady?
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More realistic takes on the concept have her solving minor misdemeanors and crimes which the police are too busy to solve. The most famous [[Little Old Lady Investigates]] character is probably Agatha Christie's [[Miss Marple]].
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{{examples
== [[Anime]] ==
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** And ''yes'', [[Bold Inflation|THIS]] is how the '''character''' ''talks and writes''!
* [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Maskerade|Maskerade]]'' mixes this and ''Phantom of the Opera'', parodying the heck out of both along the way.
* [[Deconstructed]] brutally in the short story "Granny Gumption Solves a Murder" from ''100 Dastardly Little Detective Stories''. The titular Granny Gumption does indeed solve a murder, and confronts the murderer [[Idiot Ball|in his own home]], [[What an Idiot!|without any witnesses]]-- and ''[[Have You Told Anyone Else?|mentions that she didn't tell anyone else that she figured out the truth]].'' {{spoiler|Needless to say, she becomes his next murder victim in an excruciatingly brutal death scene that starts with a broken jaw and [[Eye Scream]] and [[It Got Worse|just gets worse]] from there}}.
** You can read this vicious little story [http://www.cjhenderson.com/docs/GRANNY.pdf here] if you like. (Note: link goes to PDF file.)
* ''[[The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency]]'': Precious Ramotswe falls squarely into this category, despite the fact that she rarely solves murders, isn't all that old and is hardly little in the waist department.
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