Guidelines for interpreting mystery dramas, in movies, radio, or television

* The slutty girl is the murderess.

* Importance of the corpus delicti:   If the body is missing, the alleged victim is alive, either kidnapped, or participating in some scam.  Alternately (a minority plot, that of Chasing the Dime), it is being kept in cold storage, for safekeeping, so as to frame the innocent protagonsit.

*  The arrogant or nasty guy -- though an asshole -- is probably not the Mole.   But a character who makes your skin crawl, for reasons you can’t quite put your finger on … watch out.

* Whatever just happened, has roots in something that happened  long, long ago …

(For more on thrillers, try here.)

(And here.)             (And here.)