...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!
Detective Patsy
- 276 statements
- 51 feature instances
- 29 referencing feature instances
Detective Patsy | type |
FeatureClass | |
Detective Patsy | label |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy | page |
DetectivePatsy | |
Detective Patsy | comment |
The perp hires a detective to solve the crime, in order to throw suspicion off himself. The perp may have a plan to make the detective a Fall Guy for the crime. Or it may be done merely to strengthen their claim that they're innocent and ignorant of the crime (the same logic that sometimes leads criminals to report their own crimes to the police). Typically, the detective in question is a Defective Detective, to minimize the odds of him actually working it out. Invariably, the detective turns out to be not quite so defective as the perp thought, and figures it all out. This often leads to monologuing (both from the Detective and the Perp) and the inevitable "The only thing I couldn't figure out was..." statement during the Final Confrontation. This is an archetypal trope in detective fiction, as even Sherlock Holmes was abused like this. This trope is often used as a reveal or twist, expect spoilers below. Compare Detective Mole. |
|
Detective Patsy | fetched |
2024-04-27T16:47:10Z | |
Detective Patsy | parsed |
2024-04-27T16:47:10Z | |
Detective Patsy | processingComment |
Dropped link to AceVenturaPetDetective: Not an Item - UNKNOWN | |
Detective Patsy | processingComment |
Dropped link to AdventureGame: Not an Item - IGNORE | |
Detective Patsy | processingComment |
Dropped link to BadassBureaucrat: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
Detective Patsy | processingComment |
Dropped link to BrainwashedAndCrazy: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
Detective Patsy | processingComment |
Dropped link to DeathbedConfession: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
Detective Patsy | processingComment |
Dropped link to FakedKidnapping: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
Detective Patsy | processingComment |
Dropped link to NoirEpisode: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
Detective Patsy | processingComment |
Dropped link to OccultDetective: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
Detective Patsy | processingComment |
Dropped link to PlayedWith: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
Detective Patsy | processingComment |
Dropped link to UrExample: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
Detective Patsy | processingComment |
Dropped link to VillainWithGoodPublicity: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
Detective Patsy | processingComment |
Dropped link to invokedtrope: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
Detective Patsy | processingComment |
Dropped link to lampshadehanging: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
Detective Patsy | processingUnknown |
AceVenturaPetDetective | |
Detective Patsy | isPartOf |
DBTropes | |
Detective Patsy / int_1145d0f7 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_1145d0f7 | comment |
Who Censored Roger Rabbit?: Roger hired Eddie Valiant to investigate his boss - so that Roger would have someone to frame when he killed his boss. In the final chapter Eddie admits that the plan would have worked were it not for two complications that Roger had no way of seeing coming. | |
Detective Patsy / int_1145d0f7 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_1145d0f7 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Who Censored Roger Rabbit? | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_1145d0f7 | |
Detective Patsy / int_148f217e | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_148f217e | comment |
Occurs in Nancy Drew: The Deadly Device; believing Nancy Drew to be less-than-competent, the murderer hires her to investigate the death of a scientist. He finds out that it’s a bad idea to try to make Nancy Drew a patsy — the hard way. | |
Detective Patsy / int_148f217e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_148f217e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Nancy Drew (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_148f217e | |
Detective Patsy / int_1ab7fe21 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_1ab7fe21 | comment |
Seven Stars: In the chapter "The Dog Story", private detective Jerome Rhodes is hired to track down a woman named Mimsy Mountmain, whom his client says is the meatspace identity of a notorious cybercriminal. As a precaution, he also starts investigating his client in case she has an ulterior motive. He eventually figures out that his client is Mimsy Mountmain, and that his precautionary investigation has revealed to her the location of the woman in whose name she hired him — her one remaining serious rival. | |
Detective Patsy / int_1ab7fe21 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_1ab7fe21 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Seven Stars | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_1ab7fe21 | |
Detective Patsy / int_26674ed5 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_26674ed5 | comment |
Non-detective variation: In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Olga is first seen in the Plant Chapter contacting Solidus by radio, alerting him to the presence of "a ninja." Much later, it is revealed that she's the ninja. | |
Detective Patsy / int_26674ed5 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_26674ed5 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_26674ed5 | |
Detective Patsy / int_3435c36e | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_3435c36e | comment |
In the movie Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, Ace is hired by an Englishman trying to harvest bat guano for fertilizer, who has to start a genocidal war between local African tribes to get it. Ace was hired as a means of establishing for the public that he had done everything he could to prevent the war. When Ace unexpectedly figures out who is behind the scheme to wipe out the innocent tribe, the Englishman decides to change his plans and set Ace up as a patsy for the whole thing. Lois Einhorn did much the same thing in the original Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, trying to frame Ace for her own murder of Roger Podacter and kidnapping of Snowflake and Dan Marino. |
|
Detective Patsy / int_3435c36e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_3435c36e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_3435c36e | |
Detective Patsy / int_364144a3 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_364144a3 | comment |
In Sledge Hammer!: the episode "Play It Again, Sledge" has a women hire Sledge as private investigator, to make him an eyewitness of her "self-defence" murder. | |
Detective Patsy / int_364144a3 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_364144a3 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Sledge Hammer! | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_364144a3 | |
Detective Patsy / int_386949fa | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_386949fa | comment |
In Black Dynamite, CIA agent O'Leary reinstates Black Dynamite's license to kill so he can hunt down the mafiosi responsible for killing his brother. However, the mafia did so on O'Leary's orders, which leads to Black Dynamite uncovering The Conspiracy O'Leary was part of. | |
Detective Patsy / int_386949fa | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_386949fa | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Black Dynamite | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_386949fa | |
Detective Patsy / int_388cf8f0 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_388cf8f0 | comment |
Batman: Black and White: In "Fortunes", a private detective is hired to find a missing woman and finds her... dead. His client is the murderer, who hired him apparently on the basis that having an independent third party discover the body would make it less likely for suspicion to fall on her than if she'd "discovered" the murder herself; unfortunately for her, it doesn't take him long to see through the false clues planted at the crime scene and identify the real culprit. | |
Detective Patsy / int_388cf8f0 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_388cf8f0 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Batman: Black and White (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_388cf8f0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_39e45334 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_39e45334 | comment |
In an episode of Poirot, a shifty old lady tried to abuse Capt. Hastings in this way; she had the sense not to go to Poirot directly. In the books, however, Poirot frequently finds himself working for clients with something to hide — though not necessarily murder. | |
Detective Patsy / int_39e45334 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_39e45334 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Poirot | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_39e45334 | |
Detective Patsy / int_400469e | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_400469e | comment |
Parodied in one of the "Tracer Bullet" strips of Calvin and Hobbes. In Calvin's fantasies, he's being used as the fall-guy for a room being ransacked; in real life, Calvin was at least partially responsible (and may have been entirely responsible depending on whether you think Hobbes is alive). | |
Detective Patsy / int_400469e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_400469e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Calvin and Hobbes (Comic Strip) | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_400469e | |
Detective Patsy / int_424daefd | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_424daefd | comment |
Black Jack Justice: "Justice For Some" has Jack and Trixie hired by a man as incognito security at a showing of his family's heirloom jewelry. In the course of the episode no less than three notorious thieves show up at the event and, when the jewels go missing, they're immediately suspected. The only problem is that one had gone straight, another was scoping out the artwork in another room, and Jack managed to nab the third when the lights went out, ensuring he couldn't have done anything. The whole thing turns out to have been a plot by their client to steal the gems himself for the money, while one of the real thieves was set up for the crime. "The Reunion" features a woman, Edie, hiring the detectives to help facilitate a reunion with her estranged twin sister, Jane. The patsy comes in when it's revealed that Edie is Jane. Jane murdered Edie in the heat of the moment and tried to pretend to make up, with Jack and Trixie as witnesses, so that she wouldn't be suspected when Evie was missed. Small inconsistencies in the situation trigger Jack's radar, making him suspicious throughout until he's able to confirm the truth while confronting Jane. "The Do-Nothing Detectives" features a man named Raymond Davis giving Jack and Trixie $1,000 to cease working for their client Angela Barnes... who neither of them had ever actually met. The odd behavior is explained by the idea that Jack and Trixie would be witnesses when Angela Barnes turned up dead by suicide after apparently murdering their client. The man who hired them killed by Angela Barnes and the real Raymond Davis, making sure to mess up the man's face so he couldn't be readily identified as not the man Jack and Trixie met. The whole thing falls apart because the whole situation is so suspicious Jack just has to investigate it despite their job literally being to do no such thing. |
|
Detective Patsy / int_424daefd | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_424daefd | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Black Jack Justice (Podcast) | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_424daefd | |
Detective Patsy / int_452aae20 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_452aae20 | comment |
Sherlock Holmes (BBC Radio): In "The Determined Client" a woman who found her father had shot her wicked cousin, wounding him and causing him to crack his head, then shot himself out of remorse, carefully arranges the scene to create the impression the cousin killed her father, then shot himself in the shoulder and placed the gun in her father's hand, only cracking his head after this fake suicide was in place. When the police prove to be Too Dumb to Fool, she calls in Holmes, who traces the scenario he's been presented with, then traces the inconsistencies in that to what actually happened, and later tells Watson he'd suspected her of this before he even saw the room. | |
Detective Patsy / int_452aae20 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_452aae20 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Sherlock Holmes (BBC Radio) (Radio) | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_452aae20 | |
Detective Patsy / int_46e051cd | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_46e051cd | comment |
Lampshaded in one episode of Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?: "And I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids ... who, like an idiot, I called here!" | |
Detective Patsy / int_46e051cd | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_46e051cd | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_46e051cd | |
Detective Patsy / int_4737c653 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_4737c653 | comment |
In the Elementary episode "The Visions of Norman P. Horowitz", Sherlock is contacted by Horowitz's brother, not to investigate his death by accidental overdose, but because before he died he predicted a series of deaths that is coming true, and Sherlock is on the list. Sherlock naturally feels he has to prove Horowitz could not predict the future, and someone killed these people to make it look as if he could. It was the brother, and the whole point of the exercise was to draw the attention of former Holmes client (and vague associate of Horowitz) Henry Baskerville, so he'd pay silly money for the rest of Horowitz's "predictions". | |
Detective Patsy / int_4737c653 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_4737c653 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Elementary | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_4737c653 | |
Detective Patsy / int_49340431 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_49340431 | comment |
Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Invoked after Pimento was fired from the NYPD. Holt suggests he could become a private investigator. | |
Detective Patsy / int_49340431 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_49340431 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Brooklyn Nine-Nine | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_49340431 | |
Detective Patsy / int_4f847312 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_4f847312 | comment |
Nero Wolfe once required a client to sign a statement promising to pay in full, even if he turned out to be the guilty one. It turned out to be a good precaution. | |
Detective Patsy / int_4f847312 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_4f847312 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Nero Wolfe | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_4f847312 | |
Detective Patsy / int_510ee4a2 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_510ee4a2 | comment |
Parodied in the Sam Spayed: Babes and Bullets section of Garfield: His 9 Lives, in which Spayed immediately assumes his client killed her husband and is planning to double-cross him, he's just not sure why and how. (She didn't.) | |
Detective Patsy / int_510ee4a2 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_510ee4a2 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Garfield: His 9 Lives (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_510ee4a2 | |
Detective Patsy / int_5320ab5e | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_5320ab5e | comment |
Columbo In "A Friend in Deed" the Villain of the Week is the Deputy Police Commissioner. He specifically requested Columbo for the case, having somehow failed to notice that the "bumbling" detective had a nearly spotless track record, having only failed to close one case in the entire series (also be fair, Columbo claims that he only solves about half of his cases and may be speaking truthfully. We just so happen to see his triumphs). In "Columbo Cries Wolf", Columbo is fooled into investigating a celebrity disappearance and suspected murder that turns out to be a publicity stunt. One of the two conspirators then murders the other and hides the body, assuming that Columbo won't risk making a fool of himself again. Columbo is not so easily deterred. |
|
Detective Patsy / int_5320ab5e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_5320ab5e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Columbo | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_5320ab5e | |
Detective Patsy / int_5a35510f | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_5a35510f | comment |
In Jack Orlando, it looks like Orlando is lucky to be allowed to try to prove his own innocence, but since the Inspector is actually in on the crime, Orlando isn't meant to get anywhere. Part way through the game, Orlando gets in trouble again and is told to wait for the Inspector - but if he does, the Inspector decides that he's making too much progress and locks him up, resulting in a Nonstandard Game Over. | |
Detective Patsy / int_5a35510f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_5a35510f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Jack Orlando (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_5a35510f | |
Detective Patsy / int_5db85d4 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_5db85d4 | comment |
In the third chapter of Limbo of the Lost, after being wrongfully accused of stealing souls, Briggs is accounted for by collector O'Negus, freed, and appointed detective by the mayor to determine who is actually stealing the souls. It turns out that the soul taker is posing as the mayor, and O'Negus is one of his accomplices. | |
Detective Patsy / int_5db85d4 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_5db85d4 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Limbo of the Lost (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_5db85d4 | |
Detective Patsy / int_5eff4a2f | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_5eff4a2f | comment |
Happens to Jake Gittes at the start of Chinatown. He's hired by Evelyn Mulwray to investigate her husband Hollis, who she suspects of having an affair. Jake photographs Hollis with a young woman, and the photos are published in the paper the next day. It's not until the real Evelyn confronts him that Jake realizes the one he met was an actress, part of a ploy to ruin Hollis's career. | |
Detective Patsy / int_5eff4a2f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_5eff4a2f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Chinatown | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_5eff4a2f | |
Detective Patsy / int_694ab80 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_694ab80 | comment |
Used in the two part Batman Beyond episode "The Call." Superman asks for Batman's help uncovering a traitor in the JLU. Guess who the traitor is? Although the traitor was brainwashed into being the traitor. |
|
Detective Patsy / int_694ab80 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_694ab80 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Batman Beyond | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_694ab80 | |
Detective Patsy / int_6bcd58c7 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_6bcd58c7 | comment |
Taken to the extreme in Sin City where Ava Lord hires private eye Dwight McCarthy to get evidence on her supposedly abusive husband who may be plotting to kill her. It ends up being a setup; she manipulates Dwight into killing her husband himself. | |
Detective Patsy / int_6bcd58c7 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_6bcd58c7 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Sin City (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_6bcd58c7 | |
Detective Patsy / int_6e15faef | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_6e15faef | comment |
The Cuckoo's Calling: John Bristow hired Cormoran Strike to investigate his stepsister's death, in the hopes of deflecting suspicion from himself. | |
Detective Patsy / int_6e15faef | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_6e15faef | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
The Cuckoo's Calling | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_6e15faef | |
Detective Patsy / int_73383fee | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_73383fee | comment |
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc features this as its fifth chapter. The mastermind plants the corpse of “Junko Enoshima�, the only person killed for a rule violation, disguised in a disguise previously used to almost murder the protagonist Makoto (and knock him out from behind prior, but he only saw the disguise when the mastermind tried to murder him before being stopped). The body is rigged to blow up when someone attempts to remove the mask, preventing identification of the body. As all are present and accounted for and the mastermind’s robot mascot Monokuma is offline for a time, it’s assumed the body is of the mastermind themself but when Monokuma comes back online the only possibility is the hidden 16th student Mukuro Ikusaba that the Ultimate Detective Kyoko Kirigiri had discovered evidence of. However, almost all evidence (planted by the mastermind) implicates either Kyoko or Makoto in her murder as those two were really the only people actually solving prior murders, making them the biggest threat. The mastermind’s plan backfires however as Makoto covers up the key evidence that the mastermind had established to implicate only Kyoko, allowing himself to be convicted. He’s sent to be executed, but rescued by the believed-destroyed AI Alter Ego and dumped in the trash, which Kyoko rescues him from. The corpse is actually the 16th student, but she was disguised as Junko at the time, as Junko is the real mastermind. | |
Detective Patsy / int_73383fee | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_73383fee | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (Visual Novel) | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_73383fee | |
Detective Patsy / int_7460586f | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_7460586f | comment |
Archer saw this trope used when the agency is hired to protect the Pope, only to learn that the Cardinal that had hired them was relying on their being Incompetence, Inc. and fail to protect him so that he could get away with it by pointing to how seriously he was taking the threat. | |
Detective Patsy / int_7460586f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_7460586f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Archer | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_7460586f | |
Detective Patsy / int_761cd218 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_761cd218 | comment |
Notably used in Scooby-Doo! and the Witch's Ghost where Ben Ravencroft invites the gang to Oakhaven, while planning to summon the ghost of his evil ancestor. Specifically Ravencroft aksed them to help him to find said ancestor's spell book, claiming that it's a journal of her work as a healer. When Daphne wonders about the deception, Velma is quick to deduce that, if Mystery Inc. knew what he was really looking for, they'd never agree to help. |
|
Detective Patsy / int_761cd218 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_761cd218 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Scooby-Doo! and the Witch's Ghost | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_761cd218 | |
Detective Patsy / int_892aa56a | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_892aa56a | comment |
Murdoch Mysteries A convoluted one in the episode "Murdoch Appreciation Society". The killer wants to frame the professor who expelled him from medical school for the murder of a man who's donated his brain to science. But he knows that if the death doesn't look suspicious, the corpse will go straight to the professor and there won't be a proper post mortem. On the other hand, if it does look like an obvious murder, Murdoch will realise the professor is being framed. So he joins the eponymous Appreciation Society and convinces them to stage a fake murder so they can watch Murdoch work, using a body he can steal from the medical school. So not only does Murdoch get involved but there's an extra layer of false explanation (the fake murder) for him to disprove, and it looks like the professor would have committed a perfect crime except for the Society's interference. Invoked Trope in "A Study in Pink": When evidence is mounting that Murdoch's childhood friend, the private detective Freddie Pink might be a murderer, she protests that she's the one who called the police. He suggests she might be attempting this, and she says she'd surely know his methods well enough to anticipate him seeing through it, unless he thinks she was anticipating him concluding that she wouldn't do it because he'd see through it... It turns out there was no murder, although Freddie was protecting a client who had killed her husband in self-defence, and had been framed by his family so she'd be forced to explain things in court. |
|
Detective Patsy / int_892aa56a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_892aa56a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Murdoch Mysteries | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_892aa56a | |
Detective Patsy / int_8a2895c0 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_8a2895c0 | comment |
Happens to young and unexperienced Bert Kling in 87th Precinct novel The Muggler. | |
Detective Patsy / int_8a2895c0 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_8a2895c0 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
87th Precinct | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_8a2895c0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_8d81f086 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_8d81f086 | comment |
Monk: In "Mr. Monk and the Leper," Monk is hired by the presumed-dead Derek Bronson - who has been voluntarily missing on account of his severe, horrifically disfiguring leprosy for seven years - to break into his old house and steal some letters that would show he had been cheating on his wife (saying they would “destroy her� if she ever found them). It turns out to be a hoax, the real Derek is dead (likely murdered by his wife) but he left his fortune to his sister and nephews, so to keep him from being declared legally dead said wife orchestrated the whole thing so that Monk (by this point in the series a celebrity who’s probably the most respected man in California) would later testify that he’d seen Derek alive. To this end she hires (and later kills) an imposter to impersonate her husband, with the leprosy angle exploiting Monk’s intense germophobia to keep him from getting a good look at the man or becoming too invested in the case. | |
Detective Patsy / int_8d81f086 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_8d81f086 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Monk | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_8d81f086 | |
Detective Patsy / int_97a70962 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_97a70962 | comment |
The Professionals In "Not A Very Civil Civil Servant", CI5 is given a watching brief on a corruption trial over the objections of its boss George Cowley. The corrupt bureaucrat who arranged this tries to end the brief after the accused are acquitted—but that's only because a witness 'committed suicide', and now Cowley is no longer in a mood to drop the matter. Turns out giving such a task to a Badass Bureaucrat with a virtually unlimited brief of his own is a bad idea. In "Everest Was Also Conquered", a Whitehall mandarin who was a mentor of Cowley asks CI5 to look into a Deathbed Confession to murder. Turns out he was part of the conspiracy and wanted to find out how secure he was. In "When the Heat Cools Off", Doyle is approached by the daughter of a man convicted of killing Doyle's police partner, claiming that he was framed. Doyle convinces Cowley to let them investigate, but it turns out the new evidence has been fabricated and he really was guilty. |
|
Detective Patsy / int_97a70962 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_97a70962 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
The Professionals | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_97a70962 | |
Detective Patsy / int_9a67b688 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_9a67b688 | comment |
In Case Closed, a case that had both Conan and Heiji working together in Osaka had the detective who was helping them and Kogoro to catch a serial killer... as the killer himself. The victims were the people who caused the death of his father, 25 years ago; he specifically became a policeman to find them, make them spit the truth out, and then kill them in a way that would both baffle the whole Osaka police corps ''and'' let him blame someone else for it. | |
Detective Patsy / int_9a67b688 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_9a67b688 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Case Closed (Manga) | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_9a67b688 | |
Detective Patsy / int_9f78fda3 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_9f78fda3 | comment |
A weird one in Murder, She Wrote: The murderer is a DA, who killed one of the defendants in a major fraud case. Earlier, he tried to phone her and accidentally called Jessica's number. To cover this up, the DA subpeonas Jessica and refuses to believe she has no idea what it's about. So Jessica has to solve the murder to avoid being found in contempt of court. | |
Detective Patsy / int_9f78fda3 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_9f78fda3 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Murder, She Wrote | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_9f78fda3 | |
Detective Patsy / int_a309575c | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_a309575c | comment |
Happens so frequently in Jonathan Creek that merely soliciting his services should be ample proof of guilt. The episode "Daemon's Roost" is a big one, because he didn't figure it out; there's a Flash Back to the Striped Unicorn case, in which a man carefully stages his wife's murder so that it initially appears as if only he could have done it, but there's a brilliant explanation otherwise for Jonathan to find. Jonathan only realises the truth after the man's second wife calls him in on another case, six years later. | |
Detective Patsy / int_a309575c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_a309575c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Jonathan Creek | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_a309575c | |
Detective Patsy / int_a609791a | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_a609791a | comment |
Scooby-Doo: Notably used in Scooby-Doo! and the Witch's Ghost where Ben Ravencroft invites the gang to Oakhaven, while planning to summon the ghost of his evil ancestor. Specifically Ravencroft aksed them to help him to find said ancestor's spell book, claiming that it's a journal of her work as a healer. When Daphne wonders about the deception, Velma is quick to deduce that, if Mystery Inc. knew what he was really looking for, they'd never agree to help. Lampshaded in one episode of Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?: "And I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids ... who, like an idiot, I called here!" |
|
Detective Patsy / int_a609791a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_a609791a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Scooby-Doo (Franchise) | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_a609791a | |
Detective Patsy / int_ab3a6a48 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_ab3a6a48 | comment |
Scott Shelby in Heavy Rain who is the Origami killer. | |
Detective Patsy / int_ab3a6a48 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_ab3a6a48 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Heavy Rain (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_ab3a6a48 | |
Detective Patsy / int_ae2f531b | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_ae2f531b | comment |
Randall Banticoff does this to Luke Cage in Luke Cage Noir, hiring Cage to investigate his wife's murder while arranging for him to take the rap for the crime - and die before a trial could potentially expose it as a frame job. | |
Detective Patsy / int_ae2f531b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_ae2f531b | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Luke Cage (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_ae2f531b | |
Detective Patsy / int_b166795b | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_b166795b | comment |
In the Dog City episode "The Great Dane Curse", Candice Dane hired Ace to find out who's trying to kill her, and then disappeared, leaving Ace as the prime suspect in her murder. It eventually transpires that she faked her death to escape her controlling father. | |
Detective Patsy / int_b166795b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_b166795b | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Dog City | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_b166795b | |
Detective Patsy / int_ba2df16b | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_ba2df16b | comment |
Klute: One of the two people who hired John Klute (who has never investigated a missing person case before) is the actual killer and seems unsettled by how successful Klute's investigation is. | |
Detective Patsy / int_ba2df16b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_ba2df16b | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Klute | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_ba2df16b | |
Detective Patsy / int_bf4cfd40 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_bf4cfd40 | comment |
In StrikerS Sound Stage X of the Lyrical Nanoha franchise, Teana found herself in this role, as she eventually found out that the perp who was behind the killings of the case she was investigating was Runessa, her assistant who had been part of the case since day one and who regarded the already dead fanatic Toredia as a mentor and father figure. | |
Detective Patsy / int_bf4cfd40 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_bf4cfd40 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
StrikerS Sound Stage X / Audioplay | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_bf4cfd40 | |
Detective Patsy / int_c266cea1 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_c266cea1 | comment |
The thriller No Way Out (1987) subverts this: Commander Tom Farrell, the man that Defense Secretary David Brice and his aide Scott Pritchard hire to investigate a murder that they are attempting to blame on a Soviet mole is the person they are trying to frame and knows that Brice is the one actually guilty of the murder. | |
Detective Patsy / int_c266cea1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_c266cea1 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
No Way Out (1987) | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_c266cea1 | |
Detective Patsy / int_c9d6c480 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_c9d6c480 | comment |
It has happened to Hercule Poirot, in Peril at End House, Lord Edgeware Dies, and the short story "The Veiled Lady" — with honorable mention to Murder On The Links, where this was attempted but the person doing the hiring was murdered before Poirot had even arrived. At least all of these are duly explained, unlike "The Hunter's Lodge Mystery" story where the decision to call in Poirot doesn't seem to follow any logic. | |
Detective Patsy / int_c9d6c480 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_c9d6c480 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
HerculePoirot | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_c9d6c480 | |
Detective Patsy / int_cac1f772 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_cac1f772 | comment |
Another police example is the CSI fourth season episode Suckers where a casino owner attempts to fake a huge robbery for the insurance money. | |
Detective Patsy / int_cac1f772 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_cac1f772 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
CSI | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_cac1f772 | |
Detective Patsy / int_dd5c5eed | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_dd5c5eed | comment |
The Rockford Files seemed to do this a lot, but all shows about private detectives will do one eventually. | |
Detective Patsy / int_dd5c5eed | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_dd5c5eed | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
The Rockford Files | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_dd5c5eed | |
Detective Patsy / int_e32f044b | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_e32f044b | comment |
In the first Sister Fidelma story, "The High King's Sword", the abbot is encouraged to request Fidelma by the criminals, who realise that unless a clever and scrupulous dalaigh is involved, one of them will be condemned as the most likely suspect without anyone really investigating enough to find their carefully planted frame-up. | |
Detective Patsy / int_e32f044b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_e32f044b | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Sister Fidelma | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_e32f044b | |
Detective Patsy / int_e4dd9d0d | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_e4dd9d0d | comment |
Jagged Edge. In this case we see things from the point-of-view of the killer's lawyer and her private investigator, which he'd have to hire anyway as he was being prosecuted for murder. | |
Detective Patsy / int_e4dd9d0d | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_e4dd9d0d | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Jagged Edge | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_e4dd9d0d | |
Detective Patsy / int_e5feb1e | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_e5feb1e | comment |
Ace Attorney had a lawyer patsy: in case 2 of Apollo Justice, the title character is hired by the guilty party to help the innocent defendant, because the flyers for Apollo's practice made him seem likely to be incompetent. | |
Detective Patsy / int_e5feb1e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_e5feb1e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Ace Attorney (Franchise) | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_e5feb1e | |
Detective Patsy / int_eef69f10 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_eef69f10 | comment |
Sherlock Holmes: The Ur-Example is probably the story The Adventure of the Retired Colourman. A quote from the end of the story: Alluded to in another story where Holmes reminds Watson of the time a Villain with Good Publicity wanted them to clear his name, referring to him as "a terrible murderer" who looked like "a Sunday school-attending young man". In the novella The Scroll of the Dead by David Stuart Davies, an eminent Egyptologist is secretly working with two murderous aristocratic occultists who believe that the eponymous scroll will give them immortality ... if they can find it. After failing to decipher the scroll that reveals its location, they arrange a Faked Kidnapping, and send the Egyptologist's daughter to seek Holmes's help in "finding" her father, leading him to find a copy of the location scroll in their abandoned hideout, as they believe — correctly — that his skill in codebreaking will succeed where knowledge of Ancient Egypt has failed. The novel Master of Lies by Philip Purser-Hallard features a variation of this, when the forgers Holmes is investigating attempt to plant fake evidence that Mycroft Holmes is behind the forgery ring and Holmes killed Watson to protect his brother's reputation. While studying the fake manuscript written by the forgers with their police contact Stanley Hopkins, all three note that the scenes featuring Hopkins are basically accurate to what he remembers (allowing for minor discrepancies like Watson obviously not being able to exactly quote what everyone said), where other parts of the manuscript have either been subtly altered or are complete fiction. This leads Holmes to observe that the forgers' intention was for Hopkins to find the manuscript after Watson's death and treat it as genuine evidence of a crime. In the novel Breath of God by Guy Adams Holmes is not so much hired as warned by the Occult Detective John Silence that the supernatural force that has already killed two men has named him as a future victim. It eventually transpires that Silence is himself part of the conspiracy that killed these people, with the goal of forcing everyone to believe in magic again even if it kills them, and that Holmes was dragged into the situation partly because they thought he'd involve himself in an "impossible" crime anyway and they'd rather he did so under supervision, and partly so they could say "Look, even the arch-rationalist is taking this seriously". However, they underestimated just how much of a rationalist Holmes was; in The Summation, he says that, unable to come up with a mundane explanation for Silence's story, he had always approached the case with his default assumption being that it was simply a lie. |
|
Detective Patsy / int_eef69f10 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_eef69f10 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Sherlock Holmes | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_eef69f10 | |
Detective Patsy / int_f12fcaae | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_f12fcaae | comment |
An episode of Simon & Simon deals with the detectives being hired by a magician into a case, and they discover that the ex wife of the magician did it. Later, they discover it was all the magician ruse. Then he explains: | |
Detective Patsy / int_f12fcaae | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_f12fcaae | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Simon & Simon | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_f12fcaae | |
Detective Patsy / int_f16ee232 | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_f16ee232 | comment |
The Caves of Steel. Elijah Baley discovers that Commissioner Enderby, who assigned him the case, is the murderer. However during The Summation he points out that Enderby had good reasons for doing so; he's promised Elijah a promotion that he's desperate for, the two of them are old friends from way back, and if that doesn't work then he has blackmail material because Elijah's wife is secretly a member of a radical anti-robot organisation. | |
Detective Patsy / int_f16ee232 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_f16ee232 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
The Caves of Steel | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_f16ee232 | |
Detective Patsy / int_ff2165b | type |
Detective Patsy | |
Detective Patsy / int_ff2165b | comment |
Cold Case had an interesting variation: A professor was accused, but never proven guilty, of the murder of one of his female students. Because of this he was discredited and fired by the university. He went to the team to have them reopen the case, only for them to figure out it was him all along, and this time they gathered enough evidence to arrest and convict him. Oops. | |
Detective Patsy / int_ff2165b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Detective Patsy / int_ff2165b | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Cold Case | hasFeature |
Detective Patsy / int_ff2165b |
The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.
Copyright of DBTropes.org wrapper 2009-2013 DFKI Knowledge Management. Imprint. - Thanks to Bakken&Baeck for hosting. Contact.
Copyright of data TVTropes.org contributors under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Copyright of data TVTropes.org contributors under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.