Come Quote by Elif Batuman

Motive is never easy. Sometimes it occurs to one only later.

— John Hawkes

The detective genre is not easy because you've got to get to a conclusion that is unexpected.

— Miranda Otto

In a mystery, the sleuth must be believably involved and emotionally invested in solving the crime.

— Diane Mott Davidson

The solving of almost every crime mystery depends on something which seems, at first glance, to bear no relation whatever to the original crime.

— Elsa Barker

This element of surprise or mystery the detective element as it is sometimes rather emptily called is of great importance in a plot.

— E. M. Forster

You find when you're writing a detective story that you're actually not trying to solve anything. You're trying to stop the reader from solving…

— Christopher Bollen

There's a structure to a detective story that I can easily understand. I understand playing that particular game. It's like solving a puzzle. Or…

— Christopher Bollen

“It has often been said that the more unusual the murder the easier it is to solve, but this is a theory I don't…

— Peter Ackroyd

If there was one overarching theme to 'True Detective,' I would say it was that, as human beings, we are nothing but the stories…

— Nic Pizzolatto

We must never forget that human motives are generally far more complicated than we are apt to suppose, and that we can very rarely…

— Anonymous

The writer, like the murderer, needs a motive,

— Janet Malcolm

What I try to do is write a story about a detective rather than a detective story. Keeping the reader fooled until the last,…

— Dashiell Hammett