Woman’s elk tooth necklace, 1900s.
Elk-tooth jewelry totally used to be a Thing, and I only know this because a few weeks ago I watched an old movie in which the private-detective character, fairly late in the story, borrowed a police officer’s elk-tooth watch fob and put it in a fire to demonstrate that Teeth Don’t Burn and that’s why the dentist was killed and his x-rays stolen (because the victim of the previous murder had been his patient and he might have identified him by his teeth.)
like a murder mystery that doesn’t fellate cops
is that a thing that can happen
I’ve read and watched some mystery stories where it’s regular people trying to solve a crime and the cops are actively trying to prevent them due to corruption and sometimes personal involvement.
Unfortunately, it’s a bit rare and I can’t even remember the names of the stories.
like it’s fairly common in japanese mysteries for cops to be incompetent and need a tantei to solve it for them but i mean actual private detective against the police stuff seems rare, even in superhero stories where police corruption is a common theme
i could technically argue heavy rain does this but i think it’s more due to bad writing rather than any conscious effort on david cage’s part
Ok not a murder mystery but
Scooby Doo
uh… persona 4?
A lot of “hard-boiled” private eye stories involve the detective being threatened/beaten by the cops rather than give up client confidentiality.
Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins tends to get even more of this because, well, he’s a Black man investigating stuff.
Mooncustafer 