Chapter 9: The Guilty Group Twist

The most versatile Classic Plot Twist

Hi, this is Jane from The Perfect Crime. At the end of this week’s newsletter, I’m announcing an exciting new project I’ll be releasing through this Substack. Read to the end to learn all about it!

In the last chapter, we dealt with three Classic Plot Twists that take advantage of a core belief the readers brought with them to your novel. In this chapter, we’ll be dealing with an extremely versatile twist, which requires you to violate a belief that you’ve carefully created in your readers. I call it The Guilty Group.

Before we talk about The Guilty Group, let’s talk about one of the core misconceptions people have about the mystery genre. This is one of the key takeaways that I want you to get from this book, so lean close and let me whisper in your ear:

Most people believe that mysteries involve a group of suspects, one of whom is guilty. No. It’s actually much more common for a mystery to involve a group of suspects, none of whom is guilty. Instead, the guilty party will be someone from outside the group of explicitly acknowledged suspects.

The Guilty Group twist is all about restricting the reader’s understanding of who belongs in the pool of suspects. We establish the belief that the Villain must belong to a particular group that has something in common—a motive, an ability, a philosophy, an occupation, a sex. Then we violate this belief in one of two ways.

For the first, let’s look at the Remington Steele episode “Steele at Your Service,” in which a butler named Hastings is murdered. Hastings was eagerly anticipating the publication of his memoirs, a sordid look at his years of service to the wealthy Wellington family. This gives our Sleuths a clear direction for their investigation, and they eagerly go about smoking out each of the Wellingtons’ secrets. They’re certain that they know both the motive (preventing the memoirs’ publication) and the group of people to whom that motive applies (the Wellington family).

They’re wrong on both counts. The Villain wasn’t a Wellington, and he didn’t care about the memoirs. Instead, Hastings was killed by the gardener, who wanted to steal a fortune in stock certificates that Hastings had slowly accumulated. This is one way to deploy the Guilty Group twist: have the Villain come from outside the Guilty Group.

For the other way to write this twist, we’ll look at another episode of Remington Steele called “Gourmet Steele.” In this plot, famed restaurant critic Dick L’Orange goes missing. For most of the episode, the investigation focuses on three restaurateurs, all of whom paid L’Orange for glowing reviews, and all of whom received jeering pan jobs instead. The Sleuths doggedly pursue these three suspects, until a critical clue links the crime to one of L’Orange’s fellow food critics, Michael Fleming. This prompts them to realize that Fleming actually owns a restaurant, too—he just hasn't allowed his name to be publicly associated with it. He attacked L’Orange to prevent his own restaurant from being panned.

In this version of the twist, the Villain does indeed come from within the Guilty Group—in this case, restaurant owners. However, we were deceived about which characters were members of that group.

Both of the above plots restrict the Guilty Group by motive. Another way to restrict the group would be by opportunity. In the Parks and Recreation episode “Are You Better Off?” the entire Parks Department of the city of Pawnee spends a weekend retreat at a cabin belonging to their department head, Ron. One of the characters, Andy, finds a positive pregnancy test in the trash, and deduces that one of the women who attended the retreat must be pregnant.

Being pregnant isn’t a crime, obviously, but Andy investigates as though it is one, ruling out each suspect until he has eliminated all of them. Only then do we learn who is actually pregnant—Ron’s girlfriend, Diane, who visited the cabin before the retreat took place.

This is the second form of the Guilty Group twist—the suspect pool is restricted to those women who had the opportunity to discard a test at the cabin—but we hadn’t fully understood which characters fell within that group.

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When creating a Guilty Group twist, you can restrict your group in any number of different ways. Some of the most common are motive, means, and opportunity. But some others might be:

• Sex. If the crime was physically difficult to commit, we might assume the Villain was a man.

• Knowledge. If the Victim had a dark secret in his past, we might assume that only those who knew about it would have a reason to kill him.

• Skills. If the Villain employed a particular skill during the murder, we might assume that the guilty party is known to have that skill.

• Membership in a particular business, school, or club. If tangible clues at the scene of the crime reference that organization, we might assume the Villain is a member.

You can also create plots that center around two groups of people that are highly distinct from one another. You might create:

• A murder at a resort, with two groups: Guests, and Resort Staff.

• A murder at a hospital, with two groups: Patients, and Doctors

• A murder at a jet laboratory, with two groups: Engineers and Test Pilots

Then you would use the circumstances of your crime to point suspicion toward one group—the group that doesn’t contain your Villain.

I hope you can see how versatile The Guilty Group twist is, and how it can deliver a powerful surprise to your reader. In the next chapter, we’ll be dealing with another versatile twist: Above Suspicion.

Classic Plot Twist: The Guilty Group

Summary: The Villain appears to belong to one group, but actually doesn’t. Or, the Villain does belong to the group, but this is not known to the reader.

Belief violated: The Villain was a member of the Guilty Group. Or, We understand which characters belong to the Guilty Group.

Other examples: Remington Steele, “Blue-Blooded Steele,” “Hearts of Steele”; Murder, She Wrote, “Its a Dog’s Life”

Next week… something special from The Perfect Crime!

This summer, I’m publishing my novella, Murder on Lake Michigan—and I’ve decided to give all of you a peek at it first! In between chapters of The Perfect Crime, I’ll be posting sections of Murder on Lake Michigan—a locked room murder set in a Jazz Age mansion.

Q: Does this mean less mystery-writing content?

A: Nope! I’ll still be publishing chapters of The Perfect Crime every two weeks, just as I have been. The only difference is that in between chapters, you’ll get a section of Murder on Lake Michigan.

Q: Is this for paid subscribers or everyone?

A: The first two sections will go out to everyone. Then I’ll decide, based on the reception, whether to limit it to just paid subscribers. I’m happy for everyone to read it, but I don’t want to try your patience by dropping stuff into your inbox that you don’t want.

You guys know I love locked room mysteries, and I’m so excited to share one of my own with you! Look for the first chapter of Murder on Lake Michigan next week!