Chapter 43: Twists Related to Two Villains

Welcome back to The Perfect Crime! In this chapter, we’ll be going over three Classic Plot Twists that allow your book to have not one, but two, Villains.

And Then There Were Two

The simplest of these twists is called the And Then There Were Two twist, and it occurs whe we learn that the crimes in the book were the work of two or more independent actors. Let’s see how this works in Gillian Flynn’s novel, Dark Places.

In this book, a dysfunctional relationship between a pair of teenagers leads to two separate murders. Ben and Diondra are engaged in a hot-and-heavy romance that has left Diondra pregnant, and the two of them contemplating running away together. When Ben’s younger sister, Michelle, hears them talking about this, Diondra kills her to keep her silent.

Meanwhile, Ben’s complicated feelings about Diondra have prompted him into a lot of erratic behavior, which has attracted public attention. When the police come to his house looking for him, his mom, Patty, realizes he’s in a lot of legal trouble. She has no way to help him—she’s in debt up to her eyeballs. So she hires a serial killer—who later comes to be known as the “Angel of Debt—” to murder her so her family can have the insurance payout. Tragically, this murder is witnessed by her younger daughter, Debby—so the Angel of Debt kills her, too. And all on the very same night that Diondra murders Michelle.

Three deaths in the same house, on the same night? To the police, this looks like a psychotic massacre, and Ben takes the fall. But what we actually have is two individual murders, along with a single Coverup crime. This is one of the wonderful things about the And Then There Were Two twist: it can obscure the motive of one or both Villains, leading the reader to false assumptions that can be overturned for massive effect.

But this twist is not without a major difficulty, which is this: how will you make it seem plausible that both crimes occurred at, or around, the same time? In real life, coincidences happen all the time. In fiction, they tend to make the reader feel cheated—as though they can see you standing just outside the frame of your story, manipulating its events with too heavy a hand.

One way around this is to use a single cause as the Trigger for both murders. In Dark Places, Ben and Diondra’s relationship serves this purpose. It directly prompts Diondra’s murder of Michelle, and it also lands Ben in hot water—making Patty just desperate enough to enlist the services of the Angel of Debt.

Classic Plot Twist: And Then There Were Two

Summary: There are two independent Villains.

Violated belief: There is only one Villain (or group of Villains)

Other examples: Remington Steele, “Santa Claus is Coming to Steele”

Copycat Crimes

Another way to get around this problem is to have one crime actually prompt the other. Let’s see how this works in “Poison,” an episode of HBO’s The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.

In this episode, our Sleuth, Precious Ramotswe, is investigating an ivory smuggling operation. She’s hot on the trail of the culprits when she is approached by a new client, Mr. Makgothi, who is dealing with a family problem. Since his younger brother married, there have been several incidents in which everyone in their large family home became violently ill—and several family members suspect that the new bride is behind it.

Precious agrees to go undercover at the Makgothi home—and that very evening, after dinner, the entire household becomes terribly ill. Precious investigates, and learns that the cook deliberately tampered with the food. This is our first Villain, but he’s not such a bad guy—he never wanted to kill anyone, only to make them sick. He hates his job, but for social reasons, he can’t leave it. He’s hoping that if he proves himself to be a terrible cook, he’ll be fired.

Case closed, right? Not so fast. Early that morning, Precious finds a tea tray outside her room. She assumes it has been left for her by the household staff, and is just about to drink it when the maid arrives, bearing a tea tray for her. She realizes that the first tray was left for her not by a servant, but by someone who intended to poison her. If she had drunk the poisoned tea, her death would have been put down to the same illness the rest of the family experienced.

It turns out that Makgothi’s brother and her new wife are behind this attempted poisoning. Not only have they figured out what the cook was up to—they are also the ivory smugglers, whom Precious was investigating at the beginning of the episode. When they realized that Precious was onto them, they manipulated Makgothi into hiring her and bringing her to the house. They planned to piggyback on the cook’s crime—eliminating the threat to their ivory trade, while letting the cook take the fall.

Classic Plot Twist: Copycat Crimes

Summary: There are two Villains—one who is working independently, and another who seeks to disguise his crimes as those of the first.

Violated belief: There is only one Villain (or group of Villains)

Other examples: Monk, “Mr. Monk’s 100th Case”; A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton

The Doubly Dead Victim

In the Doubly Dead Victim twist, we’re dealing again with two Villains—but this time, both believe themselves to be guilty of the same murder. Let’s see how this works in an episode of Murdoch Mysteries called “Still Waters.”

An insufferable young man named Richard Hartley uses his wealth and position to bully a much poorer man, Horace Briggs, off the rowing crew at an elite country club. The crew wants Hartley out and Briggs back, so they take Hartley out for a night of hazing, determined to make him so miserable that he’ll quit. They beat Hartley with their oars, until finally Hartley runs away, wounded and disoriented. When he turns up drowned along the side of the river the next morning, the crew believes that they caused his death.

But they’re wrong. Horace survived the beating—only to be drowned by Briggs later that night.

In this plot, the Victim survived an initial attack, only to be murdered later. It’s also possible for the Victim to die after the first attack—and for their body to be assaulted by a second Villain, who doesn’t realize they’re dead.

The wonderful thing about the Doubly Dead Victim is that both Villains believe themselves to be guilty, which allows both of them to run Coverups, or even to confess— a situation that can be deliciously confusing for your Sleuth.

Classic Plot Twist: The Doubly Dead Victim

Summary: Two Villains each believe themselves guilty of the same murder.

Violated belief: There is only one Villain; AND Characters know whether or not they’re the Villain.

Other examples: Gosford Park; Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz (interior story); Remington Steele “Breath of Steele”

All of these twists can be great ones to spring on the reader at the end of a novel, delivering an extra little surprise just when it seemed like the case was closed. In next week’s chapter, we’ll be discussing two more twists you can use to give your book a stunning coup de grace.