Murder: It Takes a Community

I just finished binge-watching The Brokenwood Mysteries. Set in New Zealand, the series is devoted to the investigations of local murders. Detective Constable Sam Breen, Detective Kristin Sims, and Detective Senior Sergeant Mike Shepherd, assisted by Dr. Gina Kadinsky, medical coroner, form a dynamic team of well-drawn, if somewhat eccentric, characters.

Binge-watching allows viewers to focus on a series while obtaining an overview of a show's basic patterns and modus operandi. In watching The Brokenwood Mysteries, I was struck by the realization that the series' mysteries often revolve around a group of individuals who are drawn together by vocation, avocation, or some sort of passion, romantic or otherwise.

Such a group of people supplies not only the murder victim and the killer, but also a ready-made collection of suspects who share a common interest or pursuit, often involving personal or professional relationships, and who have a variety of motives. In other words, there's motive and opportunity; it's easy enough, usually, to supply the means. In addition to more mundane weapons, The Brokenwood Series has also put bows and arrows, caffeine, an exploding portaloo, and an electric guitar at the service of its murderers.

The series' groups of victims, murderers, and suspects include wine aficionados (“Sour Grapes”), hunters (“Hunting the Stag”), a rugby team (“Leather & Lace”), local amateur actors (“To Die or Not to Die”), tourists (“The Black Widower”), residents of a local historical village (“Stone Cold Dead”), rest home residents (“As If Nothing Had happened”), bachelorette partygoers (“Bride Not to Be”), Steampunk festival attendees (“The Power of Steam”), a local book club (“A Real Page Turner”), and the Brokenwood Women's Prison (“Dead and Buried”).

By creating an entire group of people who have a common interest, who share the same pursuit, and who are involved in a network of interpersonal relationships, the series' writers acquire all the material they need to put together an intriguing and compelling mystery for viewers to solve, if they can.

Meanwhile, Breen, Sims, Shepherd, and Kadinsky, who are occasionally visited by Commander Simon Hughes, form a group of their own, as do such local residents as entrepreneur “Frodo” Oades, Mayor Neil Bloom, gossip and pensioner Jean Marlowe, defense attorney Dennis Buchanan, pub owner Ray Neilson, and the Reverend Lucas Greene.

Brokenwood's police officers and citizens form a “home team” that contrasts with the “away team” of the visiting group comprised of victim, murderer, and suspects, thus maintaining the unity and coherence of the series, while the collection of potential villains, as well as the actual murderer and the victim, add a dash of variety and the spices of danger, violence, and suspense. In doing so, The Brokenwood Mysteries offers a template for other writers of mystery and detective stories. What works locally, in Brokenwood, can work globally, anywhere.

The process is simple, but effective:

Identify a group whose members have a common interest, share the same pursuit, and are involved in a network of interpersonal relationships. Often, a fraternal organization, a business company, a guild, a social club, or an environment that is dedicated to a single purpose, such as a nursing home or a hospital, works well, especially if it is open to new members, visitors or the general public.

Select one of the members of the group as the killer.

Select another member of the group as the murderer's victim.

Select four or five additional members of the same group as possible suspects in the murder of the victim. Make sure that they are involved in some sort of relationship with one another, but vary the nature of the relationships. They might be related through blood; through business; through romance; through friendship; through rivalry; through a common interest; through similar limitations on their health; through a former marriage; through their children; despite their own divorce; or in some other way.

Provide the means, motive, and opportunity for the killer to commit his or her murder. The means is the method or the weapon that the killer uses. The motive is the murderer's reason for killing the victim. Frequently, motives stem from the possibility of gaining something from the victim, such as money, power or influence, sex, or revenge, but sometimes motive also spring from emotions, or passions, such as rage, jealousy, envy, or fear, or from the desire, on the part of either the victim or the killer, to protect him- or herself or another person.. The opportunity for the murder requires that the killer have the chance to kill the victim. Opportunity is often based on a relationship between the killer and the victim of which no one else is aware or may be furnished by a past that the murderer and the murdered share.

Plant clues through the killer's own deeds, through the detective's observations and conversations with group members and others, through past ties between the murderer and the victim, through anonymous tips, through crime-scene evidence that is interpreted and communicated by a medical examiner or a coroner, and through pertinent facts that the detective acquires from experts or reliable sources of information such as may be found in a museum, a library, a news service's archives, a government organization, or even the Internet (provided that the website's information is itself regarded as being accurate, credible, and reliable: for example, perhaps it is maintained by a retired forensics expert or a former detective). Always keep the group and its members in mind; some of the clues may come from things they notice when no one else is on hand. For example, residents of a nursing home are likely to observe many details that no one else, including their caretakers, usually see.

Throughout the course of the story, by his or her own efforts, have the detective acquire the skills that he or she needs to solve the mystery—with a little help from the group, or the community, of course.

Watch The Brokenwood Mysteries series to see how the show's writers bring these elements together as a unified, coherent, seamless, and enjoyable whole. Other mystery series that base some or all of their crimes and investigations on the dynamics of particular groups of people with a common interest, involvement in the same pursuit, and a network of interpersonal relationships are The Dr. Blake Mysteries (“Hearts and Flowers,” “If the Shoe Fits,” “Bedlam,” “Game of Champions,” “Smoke and Mirrors,” and other episodes); Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (“Murder on the Ballarat Train,” “Death at Victoria Dock,” “Death by Misadventure,” “Murder Most Scandalous,” “Blood at the Wheel,” and other episodes); and Murdoch Mysteries (“Power,” “Still Waters,” “The Great Wall,” “Kommando,” “Voices,” and “Murdoch of the Klondik”).