The Problem with Killing Someone

Killing someone in a crime novel is surprisingly easy. I can do it in a sentence.

A gunshot, a knife, or a body at the bottom of the stairs (like in The Side Hustle). Maybe someone walks into a room and finds a person who has been dead for hours.

It’s that simple. Unfortunately, that’s where the easy part ends.

The moment I put a body into a story, I create an entire list of problems for myself.

Where is the body? How long has it been there? Who finds it? Who was the last person to see the victim alive? Who had access to the location? Was there a camera nearby? Did anyone hear anything?

Suddenly, I am no longer writing about murder. I am researching security systems, cell phones, autopsies, weather, blood, traffic patterns, and whatever other obstacle I accidentally created for myself.

The location alone can become a headache.

If I put a body in an office building, I have employees, cleaning crews, maintenance workers, security cameras, elevators, stairwells, parking garages, key cards, and people coming and going at all hours.

If I put it in a house, I have neighbors.

If I put it outside, now I have weather, animals, hikers, joggers, dog walkers, and whoever happens to wander through the area at exactly the wrong time.

Even deciding when the victim died creates problems. A few hours ago? Yesterday? Three days ago?

Each answer changes what investigators might find and what condition the body might be in. Temperature matters. Location matters. How the person died matters..

That innocent little decision can send me down a research rabbit hole I never expected to enter.

Weapons create another set of problems.

If someone gets shot, where did the bullet go? Is there a shell casing? How loud was the gunshot? Could someone nearby have heard it?

A knife seems simpler until I start thinking about blood, fingerprints, DNA, and how the killer managed to leave the scene without looking like someone who just participated in a knife fight.

Then there are phones.

Phones have become one of the biggest headaches in modern crime fiction because everybody carries one. They track location, send messages, take pictures, connect to cars and watches, and seem determined to document every waking moment of our lives.

I can have the killer leave the phone at home, but that creates another question: why did the phone suddenly stay home?

Security cameras work the same way. They’re everywhere now. Businesses and homes have them. Even if the murder itself is not recorded, someone may have captured the victim arriving, the killer leaving, or a vehicle passing through the area.

Of course, cameras are also wonderfully unreliable when I need them to be.

Maybe the footage was overwritten. Maybe the camera was pointed in the wrong direction. Maybe the image quality was terrible.

That sounds convenient until I realize I still have to make the explanation believable.

That’s really the problem with killing someone. Every answer creates another question.

So yes, killing someone in a crime novel is easy. The real problem is everything that happens afterward.

One body can create dozens of questions, several hours of research, and a browser history that would probably concern anyone who did not know what I do for a living.

All because I decided somebody needed to die.