>I. The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow. I've of

>I. The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow. I've often been annoyed at modern police shows like law and order that I think fail to introduce the suspects sufficiently. The modern formula seems more like one suspect leads to another then another then another then the confession. There's seldom any way for the viewer to suspect who's actually guilty early on, unlike murder she wrote or columbo, so there's no payoff when you find out who it was.