How to Survive a Detective Novel.

A brief guide for how to survive if you find yourself stuck in a detective novel.

Hello, Doctor Watson! 🕵️💰

There are detective novels all over the place. You cannot throw a rock without coming across a detective novel, from the time of Poe onward. If you expect to survive the story, you are going to need to keep some things in mind, but you will need to be prepared for the fact that even if you survive, things will not always end up the way that you want or hope that they will.

So, here are some things to keep in mind to make sure that you can at least make it through to the end, even if things do not end up as well as you might hope that they might.

1. Be neuro-divergent in some way that will make it so that you will be either the most amazing detective or the most amazing criminal that ever existed. Sherlock Holmes is the detective that most modern detectives in these types of stories take their ques from, and you cannot tell me that he was not neuro-divergent. He absolutely was. sure, he was also a drug addict, but his mind also worked in a way that was very different than the norm. it moved faster, retained more, and performed mental gymnastics that would seem bonkers if he were a real person. And he is not the only one who does this sort of thing. Holly Gibney from the Stephen King books is on the autism spectrum, and King implies that this causes her attention to detail to be so pronounced.

2. If you are going to be the villain of the piece, make sure that you have a Go Bag that is hidden somewhere where only you will find it. fill it with thousands of dollars in various currency, multiple forms of identification, multiple passports, disguises, and weapons.

3. Always have a guy. Something is always going to come up, and you are going to know “a guy” with a very special set of skills. This is something that goes for the detective of the story, as well as for the villain. The ones thatwill be essential will be a computer guy, someone who can handle your finances (laundering the cash through a bunch of shell companies and stored in various off shore accounts), and someone who can get you new forms of identification when you get burned.

4. If you are going to be the villain of the story, do not try to become famous. This will only be bad news for you. Be successful, but make sure that your identity remains a mystery. And while you are at it, do not try to taunt the police by trying to show off how intelligent you are. That is what dummies who get convicted of 47+ counts of money laundering, conspiracy, blackmail, racketeering, embezzlement, murder, and whatever else do. Those people deserve to get caught.

5. If you are going to be a consulting detective, a PI, or something of the like, make sure that you can handle a gun and can do some sort of martial art. Might I suggest krav maga?

6. Take notes about everything. You never know when something might come in handy later, and you will be able to make a connection that otherwise would not have been made if you had not had your notes. And make sure that you track down all of your leads. It will be time consuming, and if you were in real life, a lot of them would not pan out, but since you are in a story, they will not take as much time as they should, and all of the leads will get you closer to finding the villain.

7. Get yourself a trusty sidekick that can help you with the case even if they are kind of pointless (like John Watson), at least you will have someone to show off for and who will fictionalize your exploits to make you look amazing (while minimizing what a drug addled narcissist you are).