History Main / CriminalMindGames

->''"I pull that trigger two seconds earlier and Wallenberg would be here to see his kid play. Instead, I got some dead man robbing jewelery stores and sending me haikus."''
-->-- '''Agent Fox Mulder''' (having read that ''Fox can't guard the chicken coop''), ''Series/TheXFiles'', "Young at Heart"

-->'''Yang''': [[ComplexityAddiction That is not how my mind works.]]

* Variant: the ''Series/{{Ghostwriter}}'' episode "A Crime of Two Cities." A cross-Atlantic trio of kidnappers is led by a nutty mastermind who insists that they commit their crimes (and communicate with each other) through trick sentences and anagrams, all of which mock their intended victim. Unlike the usual trope, the leader isn't testing the heroes. She's doing it because she's arrogant, and wants to show off how the heroes are incapable of figuring out her clever clues.
* ''Series/{{Dexter}}''.

-->'''The Fisher King''': (confronting Elle Greenaway [[TheVillainKnowsWhereYouLive in her home]] with a gun after she breaks his one rule of "only the BAU team must do this quest" after she does a press conference) ''[[BerserkButton ONE RULE!!! THERE WAS ONLY ONE RULE!!!]]'' [[HeroKiller I TOLD YOU THAT THIS WAS IMPORTANT!!!]] (shoots Elle, [[SmashToBlack cut to cliffhanger]]).
** In "Masterpiece" [[spoiler: the clues led to a trap. Luckily, they figured that part out in time.]]

* Fox Mulder of ''Series/TheXFiles'' tends to get into these with reasonably human MonstersOfTheWeek, such as John Irvin Barnett from "Young at Heart", Robert Modell a.k.a. "Pusher", [[spoiler:Mulder's ex-mentor]] from "Grotesque", and [[spoiler:Modell's even eviler twin]] from "Kitsunegari".
** Prior to his assignment to the X-Files, Mulder was a criminal profile and wrote the profile that got one man convicted to a death sentance. When the man claims he's psychic and can help the police find the kidnapped victims of the week, Mulder decidedly does not believe his claim, pointing out that this is the kind of game the convict would try and pull. Conversely, Scully starts believing the guy.

* ''Film/AlongCameASpider'': "[[OnlyKnownByTheirNickname Gary Soneji]]" has a plan to kidnap a little girl as step one of [[spoiler:a plan to kidnap the son of the Russian President, who is a classmate of hers]] and drags Literature/AlexCross around with a chain of clues. Justified by the fact Someji is a massive AttentionWhore seeking FameThroughInfamy - it's even extremely heavily implied that he got the idea to do his scheme from seeing the massive media circus around the Lindbergh Baby kidnapping. [[spoiler:Soneji only has enough time to figure out that his kidnapping scheme only worked because corrupt Secret Service agents allowed it so they could profit from it and he's essentially the DiscOneFinalBoss of the story before he gets a chest full of buckshot]].

* John "Jigsaw" Kramer does this in ''Film/SawII'', having abducted Eric Matthews' son Daniel and left him, and numerous other victims-including Amanda, a survivor of his games- in a house filled with death traps, and is recording the whole thing, which becomes useful when the detective and a SWAT team show up to arrest him. Jigsaw says the son will be returned alive and safe if Matthews just has a conversation with him, but the house is also filling with nerve gas that will kill everyone inside in two hours. [[spoiler:The son is locked in a safe in Jigsaw's room, the video is not live and everyone in it is already dead apart from Amanda, and when Matthews shows up thinking he'll save his son Amanda reveals that she was Jigsaw's apprentice, and the whole thing was a revenge scheme of hers because Matthew's once framed her for a crime, ruining her life, and it ends with Amanda leaving him to die locked in the room from the [[Film/SawI first film]].]]

!!Examples

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* Jigsaw does this in ''Film/SawII'', having abducted a Detective Matthews' son and left him, and numerous other victims-including Amanda, a survivor of his games- in a house filled with death traps, and is recording the whole thing, which becomes useful when the detective and a SWAT team show up to arrest him. Jigsaw says the son will be returned alive and safe if Matthews just has a conversation with him, but the house is also filling with nerve gas that will kill everyone inside in two hours. [[spoiler: The son is locked in a safe in Jigsaw's room, the video is not live and everyone in it is already dead apart from Amanda, and when Matthews shows up thinking he'll save his son Amanda reveals that she was Jigsaw's apprentice, and the whole thing was a revenge scheme of hers because Matthew's once framed her for a crime, ruining her life, and it ends with Amanda leaving him to die locked in the room from the [[Film/SawI first film]]]].

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* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''

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These people often enjoy wordplay. Anagrams abound, as well as sentences with a carefully designed second meaning, and proper nouns which are [[WhosOnFirst conveniently also real words]] ("wait a minute, does he mean ''Jim'' Trashcompacter?").

* ''Film/BatmanForever'' features the Riddler, who naturally toys with Bruce Wayne's mind by sending him riddles in elaborate packages. During the climax of the film, he even prevents Two-Face from executing Bruce Wayne, instead leaving him with the final riddle after kidnapping Dr. Meridian. Once Bruce recovers, he and Alfred work together to try to figure out what the Riddler's deal is, first by trying to see what connection the four riddles' answers (a clock, a match, chess pawns, vowels) have before they notice that each riddle mentions a number (13, 1, 8, 5). Using number-to-letter substitution
yields M-A-H-E, but then Bruce puts the middle two numbers together to get 18 instead. That produces the letters M-R-E...Mr. E...mystery...enigma...E. Nygma. Edward Nygma.

* ''Film/BatmanForever'' features the Riddler who naturally toys with Bruce Wayne's mind by sending him riddles in elaborate packages. During the climax of the film, he even prevents Two-Face from executing Bruce Wayne, instead leaving him with a final riddle that eventually reveals the letters M-R-E...Mr. E...mystery...enigma...Edward Nygma.

Can overlap with AbsurdlyHighStakesGame.

* In ''Film/TheSnowman2017'', Harry Hole declares that the killer is playing games with them.

* Creator/AgathaChristie's Hercule Poirot came up against a CriminalMindGames villain [[spoiler:or so it seemed]] in ''The ABC Murders'', where the killer sent him mocking letters before each of the murders.

* ''Series/TheFive'': Jakob Marosi, a convicted serial killer doing life, appears to entertain himself by messing with the family of Jesse Wells and the police by falsely claiming he killed Jesse then leading them on a wild goose chase for the body.

See also LinkedListClueMethodology for a number of non-(or at least ''less'') criminal scavenger hunts. Compare TheWalrusWasPaul.

* ''Manga/DetectiveConan'':

These people often enjoy wordplay. Anagrams abound, as well as sentences with a carefully designed second meaning, and proper nouns which are conveniently also real words ("wait a minute, does he mean ''Jim'' Trashcompacter?").

* In ''VideoGame/HopkinsFBI'', the titular FBI agent's fiancée Samantha is abducted by serial killer/terrorist/[[CardCarryingVillain cartoon bad guy]] Bernie Berckson, who challenges Hopkins to rescue her by following his trail of clues and uncovering the bodies of his previous victims hidden around the city. Berckson's clues make little sense, their intended solutions [[MoonLogicPuzzle less so]], and [[it's best not to dwell on]] [[FridgeLogic the absurd amount of preparation and foresight needed]] to have set up his little scavenger hunt in the first place. [[spoiler:And the ultimate payoff for all this? Berckson uses the final clue to lure Hopkins into shooting and killing Samantha.]]

* In ''VideoGame/HopkinsFBI'', Bernie Berckson, an infamous serial killer/terrorist/[[CardCarryingVillain cartoon bad guy]], has abducted several woman, including Hopkins' fiancée Samantha, and challenges the titular FBI agent to rescue her by following his trail of clues to find each of the girls' corpses hidden around the city. The clues given make little sense, their intended solutions [[MoonLogicPuzzle less so]], and [[FridgeLogic the absurd amount of preparation and foresight Berckson would've needed]] to set it all up is [[MST3KMantra better left not dwelled on]]. [[spoiler:And the ultimate payoff for all this? Berckson uses the scavenger hunt to trick Hopkins into shooting and killing Samantha while solving one of the puzzles.]]

* ''VideoGame/HopkinsFBI'' had a [[IdiotPlot pretty stupid one]]. Serial killer/terrorist/[[CardCarryingVillain cartoon villain]] Bernie Berckson has murdered several woman and hidden their corpses around the city, [[LinkedListClueMethodology alongside clues leading sequentially to each other]]. He then challenges the titular FBI agent to find them all, with the final clue supposedly leading to his kidnapped girlfriend Samantha. Both the clues and their intended solutions [[MoonLogicPuzzle make little sense]] and [[MST3KMantra it's best not to think about]] [[FridgeLogic the absurd amount of preparation and foresight Berckson must have had]] to have set it all up. [[spoiler: And of course all of this was set up so that Hopkins would shoot and kill Samantha trying to get the last clue.]]

[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/TraumaCenter https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/crimegames.jpg]]]]

* InvokedTrope and played with on ''Manga/CatsEye'': By openly announcing in advance which item they will steal, sometimes with a riddle and sometimes leaving behind a clue of what they will steal ''next'' after they stole something, the sisters occasionally con the cops into doing what they think are the better measures to safeguard an item... which instead leaves it wide open for stealing. Most of the time, though, they are showing off.

** One [[ComicBook/BatmanAdventures comic]] set in the Franchise/DCAnimatedUniverse had Batman ''fail'' to decipher the Riddler's clues; he stumbled upon the crime because he was following three other crooks who had the same target. When the Riddler realizes this, he doesn't care that he's going to jail because as far as he's concerned, he ''won''.

* Issue #6 of ''Comicbook/UntoldTalesOfSpiderMan'' had Spidey and the Human Torch working together to stop The Wizard, who left logic-based puzzles as clues to his next caper. The crime spree was The Wizard's attempt to prove that he was smarter than the Torch, but [[GeniusBruiser Spider]]-[[TeenGenius Man]] solved them all fairly easily.

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-->'''The Fisher King''': (confronting Elle Greenaway [[TheVillainKnowsWhereYouLive in her home]] after she breaks his one rule of "only the BAU team must do this quest" after she does a press conference with a gun) ''[[BerserkButton ONE RULE!!! THERE WAS ONLY ONE RULE!!!]]'' [[HeroKiller I TOLD YOU THAT THIS WAS IMPORTANT!!!]] (shoots Elle, [[SmashToBlack cut to cliffhanger]]).

** Prior to his assignment to the X-Files, Mulder was a criminal profile and wrote the profile that got one man convicted to a death sentance. When the man claims he's psychic and can help the police find the kidnapped victims of the week, Mulder decidedly does not believe his claim, pointing out that this is the kind of game the convict would try and pull. Similarly, Skully starts believing the guy.

* ''Series/{{NUMB3RS}}'': Usually the clues require advanced mathematics to unravel, since the show's Aesop is that Math is useful and mathematicians are like superheroes -- with math. "The Janus List" [[GambitRoulette took this to ridiculous extremes]]. Supposedly, the whole point of the exercise was to give the FBI a list of double agents, but the character who had the list made it all but impossible for the FBI to find it. [[spoiler:To be fair, this also hid the list from double (triple?) agent Colby Granger -- but routes much more direct were available.]]
** In "The Janus List", extreme complexity ''was'' the point. He was too emotionally invested in the list to just hand it over; the puzzles were a test by which the recipient would prove they were worthy (by his standards) of the information.

Not only do the detectives oblige the nutter and follow his breadcrumb trail, they tend to give up all conventional routes of investigation. Usually they are the minutest step behind their quarry right until the end. Sometimes the criminal wishes to distract or trap the detectives, sometimes they want them to uncover some other truth along the way, but usually they're just being a real smartass. Sometimes the clues are hidden in the SerialKiller's CallingCard or in its gruesome [[FingerInTheMail souvenirs]]. There is often a BreakingSpeech (or TheReasonYouSuckSpeech) and a KirkSummation (or WorldOfCardboardSpeech) exchange between TheProtagonist and antagonist some time before the climax.

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': Right before his execution Doctor Psycho sends a note to ComicBook/SteveTrevor that taunts that he's going to kill Trevor after his execution and gives clues as to when and how. Even with this note he nearly succeeds in killing Steve, with Diana's speed being the only thing that saves him from the disguised explosive device when it goes off right on his desk.

* Subverted in ''Manga/DeathNote:'' the master detective L expects Kira to be leaving messages -- but Kira is just as smart as he is, so only leaves red herrings to throw L off the scent, or meaningless clues to waste his time. And the main purpose of leaving the messages was in fact for Kira to [[HowDoIShotWeb test the limits of the Death Note's power]]. Leaving false clues for L was just a side benefit.
* In ''Anime/CodeGeass'', Lelouch invokes this in the Brittanian Army by asking Jeremiah Gottwald if he really wants people to find out about "Orange". He then Geasses Jeremiah into letting him escape, making it look like this "Orange" was a threat that Jeremiah caved to. Truth is that "Orange" is meaningless, and Jeremiah is innocent of any crimes or conspiracy by Brittanian law, but this still disgraces him and gets him investigated.

* During the first night of the culture festival in ''Manga/KaguyaSamaLoveIsWar'', a PhantomThief steals a bunch of balloon's from class 2-B and later leaves behind a note with some clocks on it that nobody can make heads or tales of. Fujiwara, who has long since been established as a lover of games and riddles, spends most of the second day trying to figure out it's meaning and catch the thief. [[spoiler:It later turns out that the clocks didn't have any meaning whatsoever. Shirogane just threw a bunch of meaningless symbols together in the hopes that [[SpannerInTheWorks she]] would be distracted long enough for him to get his GrandRomanticGesture for Kaguya ready.]]