amateur sleuth
Unpaid mystery solver
An amateur sleuth is someone who investigates crimes or mysteries without being a professional detective or law enforcement officer.
The term appears constantly in mystery fiction, where curious civilians—often elderly women, booksellers, or small-town busybodies—solve murders that baffle the police: Miss Marple is the quintessential amateur sleuth.
- cozy mysteryLow-violence amateur sleuth genre
- murder mysteryFiction about solving killings
- detectiveProfessional crime investigator
- deductionConclusion from premises
- busybodyIntrusive meddler
Miss Marple · persistence · Nancy Drew · nosy · crime scene · red herrings · false alibi · resourcefulness · pattern recognition · curiosity · meddling · Sherlock Holmes · observation · gut instinct · whodunit · small town · skepticism · clues
- crime fictiondetective fiction, murder mystery, detective novels, detective novel, detective
- mysteryclue, detective, suspect, clues, whodunit
- mystery fictionwhodunit, whodunnit, murder mystery, detective novel, detective fiction
- amateurshobbyist, nonprofessional, dabbler, novice, beginner
- Detectivesdetective, investigator, private eye, gumshoe, PI
- investigatorsdetective, investigator, inspector, gumshoe, police detective
amateur sleuthpolice detective
Officer investigating criminal cases
private investigator · homicide detective · FBI agent · private eye · police officer