History Main / MysteryMagnet

* The Literature/DiamondBrothers always get involve into some mystery either by accident or by choice.

* ''Series/ShakespeareAndHathawayPrivateInvestigators'': The small English village of Stratford-Upon-Avon has a surprisingly high murder rate, especially among the eponymous detectives' clients, once they set up shop. Their [[InspectorJavert nemesis on the police force]] even lampshades it in the Season Four finale, quipping that their website should come with a disclaimer, ''"may include dead bodies."''

-> ''There must be something queer about me, like those people in Greek tragedies. The minute I arrive upon the scene everyone cries, "Let's have a murder."''

* ''Series/{{Matlock}}'': Matlock is a defense attorney specializing in murder cases, so ''most of the time'' its natural the murderer will contact him. However, sometimes it seems Matlock can't go anywhere without stumbling over a corpse . . . independent of his practice of law.

* Justified by her visions being the cause, but also hilariously {{Discussed}} in an early episode "SOS" of Series/{{Medium}} as Allison's daughters argue about their mother's tendency to find new cases the manual way- the older Ariel (finding the idea disturbing) insists it's just part of her job with the police, the younger [[LittleMissSnarker Bridget]] noticing a distinct trend.

* ''Series/{{Monk}}'' has taken over ''Series/MurderSheWrote'' recently for the fact that Monk clearly is a walking Grim Reaper.

*** Just to emphasise; the reason why Monk was in that cabin in the first place was because he was in '''''Witness Protection''''' for witnessing a ''completely'' unrelated homicide ''completely'' by chance. So basically, it's homicide [[Film/{{Inception}} ception]].

* Lampshaded in ''VideoGame/Persona4Arena''. [[TheLancer Yosuke]] thinks that he's going to have to start calling [[TheHero Yu]] "the mystery maker", since trouble seems to follow every time Yu shows up in Inaba. Weather this was really a coincidence or not is [[WildMassGuessing up for debate]].

* ''[[ComicBook/RobinSeries Robin]]'': Tim can't catch a break in his civilian life with his schools ending up playing host to Man-bat, kidnappings, car-jackings, and shootings and when he tries to go on vacation his hotel ends up attacked by ninjas after a fellow guest.

* ''ComicBook/MickeyMouseComicUniverse''. Mickey Mouse in the ''Mickey Mouse Mystery Magazine'' comics, an Italy gritty detective story that starts with Mickey getting into trouble with the law as a result of them mixing his involvement in solving a ton of cases in Mouseton with actually being involved in perpetrating them.

* Brought up a few times in the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' series -- every time Vimes goes somewhere, a crime is committed. Sybil is especially exasperated with this tendency in ''Snuff''. Of course, as his boss is TheChessmaster, it's entirely possible that Vetinari knew something was about to go down and somehow nudged Vimes into being there when it happened. The trope is also played with a little; Vimes might find a crime wherever he goes, but when he's somewhere else, ''less'' crime is being committed ''in'' Ankh-Morpork because of how frightened everyone is of what will happen when Vimes gets back. So he's a Mystery Magnet that actually takes the mysteries ''with'' him...
* In ''Ship Of Fools'', a ''Series/DoctorWho'' [[ExpandedUniverse tie-in]], there is a sweet little old lady who goes around solving the murders that happen all around her. It turns out she's actually a telepath subconsciously sending out "kill people in elaborate ways" signals to everyone around her, accidentally causing the very murders she solves.

* Literature/LordPeterWimsey thinks this has happened to him at one point in ''Gaudy Night''. He is rowing down the river with the female lead, Harriet Vane, when noxious smells bubble up out of the water. "Honestly, Harriet, it's indecent, the way corpses follow me about!" Fortunately, it happens to be just a local spot of water pollution.

-> ''There must be something queer about me, like those people in Greek tragedies. The minute I arrive upon the scene everyone cries, "Let’s have a murder."''
* 19th century writer Creator/ArthurMachen gave us Mr. Dyson, an amateur OccultDetective. In most of the Dyson stories, he either stumbled upon crimes as they happened or gained important clues solely because he unintentionally happened to be in the right place at the right time. The only exception to this rule was ''The Shining Pyramid'' where he became involved in a case after the fact.
* InvokedTrope with ''[[Literature/HaruhiSuzumiya The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya]]''. The main character is a RealityWarper who unconsciously causes fictional plots to happen. Koizumi warns Kyon that if Haruhi were to want to be a detective, people would start dying around her. [[spoiler:Koizumi solves this problem by ''faking'' a murder.]]
* Old Literature/MissMarple? For an old lady who lived in a relatively small town, a lot of people seemed to be murdered near her. Hell, even when she went on vacation someone was murdered.

** ''Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii'': Monk and Natalie go to Hawaii. Natalie is going to be maid of honor at her friend's wedding, and Monk chooses to go by BecomingTheMask with the medication Dioxynl because he doesn't want to be alone (although Natalie suspects Dr. Kroger put Monk up to it to avoid having to deal with him). When they get there, Monk [[SpeakNowOrForeverHoldYourPeace first ruins Natalie's friend's wedding by exposing the groom as a bigamist]]. Then, while Monk and Natalie are walking, they stumble on an elderly woman who apparently was struck by a coconut while in a hot tub, but which Monk immediately declares is a murder. So, rather than have any chance at vacation, Monk and Natalie get drawn into lots more mysteries - the murder itself, a body turning up during a luau that turns out to be connected to the first murder, a rash of strange burglaries, getting one car stolen, and another car wrecked in a hit-and-run. And then there's TV medium Dylan Swift, who seems rather interested in Monk and Natalie and also has unusual interest into the murder. Lampshaded though, in one conversation Monk and Natalie have with Lt. Ben Kealoha after they get their car wrecked:

** ''Mr. Monk is Miserable'' is a big-timer. First, a passenger is killed on the flight Monk and Natalie take to Paris, causing Natalie to tell her boss grumpily that she can't bring him anywhere. Once in Paris, they visit the catacombs (strange place to go), where the walls are lined with the bones of people condemned on the guillotine long ago. Monk finds a fresher skeleton and concludes it was dumped more recently. Naturally, Natalie is annoyed. But then, when Monk and Natalie go out to dinner at a blind restaurant (where you sit in total darkness), a woman sits down with them who says, "I know what you found". Monk senses someone approaching them due to his heightened awareness (a CallBack to the episode "Mr. Monk Can't See a Thing"). There is a noise, and Monk tells Natalie that the woman in question has just been murdered. Natalie is naturally pissed, thinking Monk can't get the skeleton case off his back, until one of the waitresses trips, prompting the house lights to be brought up, revealing that the woman sitting at their table has been stabbed and killed with Monk's steak knife and the attacker has fled.
** In ''Literature/MrMonkandtheDirtyCop'', Natalie lampshades this trope, remarking that, if ''Series/MurderSheWrote'' was true to life, then the small town of Cabot Cove, Maine has a higher murder rate per capita than South Central Los Angeles, Ciudad Juarez, and Beirut, combined.

* A stranger example than others, each ''Literature/SammyKeyes mystery usually takes place within a month. Other '''Mystery Magnet''' stories aren't as regulated.

* Inspector [[Series/{{Wallander}} Kurt Wallander]] in the novels of Swedish writer Henning Mankell lives in the small town of Ystad (population 17,286). The murders just keep happening...
* ''Literature/AgatonSax'': The titular Agaton Sax happens upon criminal conspiracies by accident a lot in the earlier books in the series. The later books tend to provide more reasonable explanations, like Scotland Yard seeking out Agaton Sax for help, or criminals going after him for the way he keeps foiling their plans.
* ''Most'' of the time Literature/NeroWolfe winds up getting involved with a murder it's because someone came to Wolfe and offered to pay him a large sum of money to deal with some personal problem. A fair number of those cases even involve Wolfe getting hired to solve a murder, or investigate a suspicious death. But it is remarkable how many times Wolfe [[Literature/TooManyCooks is invited to a gathering of the world's greatest chefs]] or [[Literature/SomeBuriedCaesar travels all the way to upstate New York for an exhibition of orchids]] and someone decides to commit murder, and with a GreatDetective already right there. It's no wonder Wolfe dislikes leaving his house.
* Charles Paris, struggling actor and amateur detective, in the novels by Simon Brett. According to his agent "When Charles's name appears on a cast list, insurance goes through the roof and actors start making funeral arrangements."

* ''Series/{{Elementary}}'': In "Ancient History", Sherlock reveals that he has a standing bet with one of the local coroners, to spot any homicide victims that the coroner classified as natural deaths. To Watson and the coroner's chagrin, he usually succeeds.
* ''Series/{{Matlock}}'': Matlock is a defense attorney specializing in murder cases, so ''most of the time'' its natural the murderer will contact him. However, sometimes it seems Matlock can't go anywhere without stumbling over a corpse . . . independent of his practice of law.
** Virtually any time Matlock goes on vacation. Matlock goes to his home town to attend a family reunion? Matlock ends up defending an accused murderer in court. Matlock goes on vacation at a seaside resort? Matlock ends up defending an accused murderer in court. ''This actually happens twice.''
** Another time, Matlock attends a wedding. He witnesses a murder from his hotel room window. Because of his obvious conflict-of-interest, Leanne represents the accused murderer.
** Matlock gives a talks to a group of undergraduates in a law club. One of them is murdered immediately thereafter.
** Matlock conducts his ''church choir''. A member of the choir is murdered, another is wrongly accused.
* ''Series/TwentyFour'' Clearly Jack Bauer gives off terror plot causing waves....

* Jonathan and Jennifer Hart of ''Series/HartToHart''.
** An episode of ''Series/{{Cybil}}'' has the title character playing the corpse on a ''Hart to Hart'' TV movie with the detective questioning them.
-->'''Jonathan''': Surely, you don't suspect us?
-->'''Detective''': How can I ''not'' suspect you? ''Everywhere'' you go, people get murdered!

** In "Mr. Monk Gets Cabin Fever," Natalie starts to become convinced that Monk is bad luck, but by the end of the episode she's convinced that Monk doesn't cause the murders, he's cosmically drawn to where they occur so he can solve them.

** Lampshaded in "Mr. Monk and the Red Herring" when Monk notices that the skeleton of a caveman on display at a museum is determined to have been a victim of homicide. Yes, no corpse that Monk has come across has died of a natural death (with a few rare exceptions). Even if they've been dead for ''30,000 years''.
** "Mr. Monk Goes to a Rock Concert": Monk and Natalie go to a rock concert (Monk accidentally having mistaken Captain Stottlemeyer's use of the phrase "rock show" for "geology museum") to help Captain Stottlemeyer search for his son Jared, who has ditched school. So Monk, looking for a payphone when he decides he wants out, accidentally walks into a port-a-potty. As he exits, Natalie finds him, and as they are walking away, they find the dead body of a roadie named Greg "Stork" Murray. Monk and Natalie are subsequently roped by Stork's girlfriend Kendra Frank into investigating the murder instead of looking for Jared, though Natalie seems perfectly okay with this.
** In "Mr. Monk and the UFO", Monk and Natalie break down in some Nevada town in the desert. They see a UFO, and when search parties arrive looking for the UFO landing site, they find the dead body of a hiker. Turns out that the hiker's killer built a model UFO so that a search party would come find the dead body because coyotes had rendered it beyond recognition.
** "Mr. Monk Bumps His Head" - Monk accidentally gets knocked out and wakes up in a little Wyoming town with amnesia. A waitress at the diner he stops at to get some food then goes missing. He begins to suspect that it's murder.

** Lampshaded again in an episode where Jessica is called as a witness in a ''Canadian'' murder trial. The defending counsel (played by PatrickMcGoohan) attempts to undermine her credibility as a witness by highlighting the alarming frequency with which Jessica and her relatives are embroiled in murder cases, eventually suggesting outright that the entire Fletcher clan is comprised of homicidal maniacs.

* Justified by her visions being the cause, but also hilariously {{Discussed}} in an early episode "SOS" of Series/{{Medium}} as Allison's daughters argue about their mother's tendency to find new cases the manual way- the older Ariel (finding the idea disturbing) insists it's just part of her job with the police, the younger [[LittleMissSnarker Bridget]] noticing a distinct trend.
--> ''"I hope you're right, because when I grow up and have kids, I don't want to have to explain to them why their grandma has so many dead bodies around all the time."''
* In the ''Series/{{TheXFiles}}'' episode "Blood", the sheriff of a small Pennsylvania town remarks on the sudden, inexplicable rise in homicides:

* ParodySue Erika Furudo from ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry'' tells Battler at one point that whenever she goes on a trip murders just happen to occur around her wherever she goes.

->''"Most people can go their whole lives without getting involved with a murder. Monk is lucky if he can go outside and get his morning paper off his stoop without tripping over a dead body. Murders happen around him with such astonishing frequency that it's long since gone beyond coincidental and borders on supernatural.''
->''"I guess on some level I knew the moment Monk showed up on the plane that it was inevitable that, one way or another, I'd get dragged into a homicide investigation in Hawaii."''

->''"...the wedding part I could almost forgive him for, since he saved Candace from marrying a pathological liar and would-be bigamist, but I deeply resented the corpse.''

** Sakurako Yonezawa is a minor recurring character and housekeeper, whose employers keep dying whenever she appears. Megure also noticed that.

* ''Manga/CaseClosed.'' Poor kid can't go ''anywhere'' without a murder happening.

* In ''LightNovel/{{Gosick}}'', Kujo seems to have quickly earned an in-story reputation for being cursed given how often he ends up being a witness to a murder in a short space of time.

* InvokedTrope with ''[[LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya]]''. The main character is a RealityWarper who unconsciously causes fictional plots to happen. Koizumi warns Kyon that if Haruhi were to want to be a detective, people would start dying around her. [[spoiler:Koizumi solves this problem by ''faking'' a murder]].

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* Rhys Bowen's ''Literatutre/HerRoyalSpyness'' Series, Lady Georgiana, whether she's invited to a party or doing a favor for The Queen, "Georgie" will end up entangled in mystery, usually with a Dead Body or two.

* Creator/EnidBlyton's ''Literature/TheFamousFive'', ''Literature/TheSecretSeven'', and ''Literature/TheAdventureSeries'' all qualify.
** Made more glaring when the crimes always seems to coincide with their school vacation.
*** Loosely plausible as July and August are probably the best times to carry out the usually outdoor crimes (one- smuggling I think- involves a nefarious man swimming long distances at night, which in England is probably only sane in August).

* Creator/EnidBlyton's ''The Famous Five'', ''The Secret Seven'', and ''The Adventure Series'' all qualify.

* Lampshaded heavily in Sharan Newman's ''Catherine Le Vendeur'' series; she frequently complains that she can't go anywhere without a dead body falling on her. Often literally, which is a RunningGag.

* Rhys Bowen's ''Her Royal Spyness'' Series, Lady Georgiana, whether she's invited to a party or doing a favor for The Queen, "Georgie" will end up entangled in mystery, usually with a Dead Body or two.

* Pointed out by Joan Coggin in her [[http://www.ruemorguepress.com/catalog/coggin_penelope.html Lady Lupin]] mysteries. ''"There must be something queer about me," she says, "like those people in Greek tragedies. The minute I arrive upon the scene everyone cries, ‘Let’s have a murder.’"''

* [=McBeen=], county coroner from Joan Hess's ''Maggod''y mystery series, has accused police chief Arly Hanks of being this trope. She snarkily replied that [[LampshadeHanging it must be all those classified ads she places in newspapers, inviting murderers to come practice their hobby in town]].

-->'''Miss Marple''': I hope you never realize just how wicked small villages can be.

-->'''Megure:''' I should just let it drop. It's becoming silly.

* ''Series/{{Monk}}'' illustrates the trope very well with the TV episodes. But the TieInNovel series manages to crank it UpToEleven. It seems that Adrian Monk and Natalie Teeger just can't leave San Francisco without running into dead bodies.

Very often these are [[AlwaysMurder Murder Mystery Magnets]], leading to UnfortunateImplications. And [[Series/MurderSheWrote Jessica Fletcher]] is the worst offender, which is the reason she is our page image here.

** The UnfortunateImplications of this are illustrated in the article, "[[http://waterfordwhispersnews.com/2011/09/25/suspected-serial-killer-jessica-fletcher-arrested-at-east-cork-home/ Suspected Serial Killer ‘Jessica Fletcher’ Arrested at East Cork Home]]", which implies that she's killed at least '''265''' people, which ought to label her a terrorist, and certifiably leave her in a straitjacket for the rest of her natural life.

* In the ''Series/{{The X-Files}}'' episode "Blood", the sheriff of a small Pennsylvania town remarks on the sudden, inexplicable rise in homicides:
-->''"In the last six months, seven people have killed twenty-two. Per capita, that's higher than the combined homicide rate of Detroit, D.C., and Los Angeles. This town is not any of those places. In Franklin, you'll never have to pull off the road to make way for a celebrity driving with a gun to his head.

** In ''Literature/MrMonkandtheDirtyCop'', Natalie lampshades this trope, remarking that, if ''Series/MurderSheWrote'' was true to life, then the small town of Cabot Cove, Maine has a higher murder rate per capita than South Central Los Angeles, California, Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and Beirut, Lebanon, combined.

** "I hope you never realize just how wicked small villages can be." -- Miss Marple

-->'''Lt. Ben Kealoha:''' When are you heading back to Frisco?
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Tuesday. Why?
-->'''Lt. Ben Kealoha:''' I'm trying to decide whether to bring in some off-duty officers and rejigger the work schedule. Since you two arrived on kauai, the crime rate has ''skyrocketed''.
-->'''Natalie Teeger:''' Maybe you should lock us up.
-->'''Lt. Ben Kealoha:''' The thought has occurred to me. ''[He grinned and drove off]''
** ''Mr. Monk Goes to Germany'' and ''Mr. Monk is Miserable'': In the first one, Monk and Natalie stumble on a killing at a Lohr duplex while in Lohr to see Dr. Kroger. Monk determines that the dead body is just one of two victims, as the real victim is the owner of the duplex next door, whose body is missing. Then while Natalie is out walking in the woods, she comes upon the missing neighbor's body.
** ''Mr. Monk is Miserable'' is a big-timer. First, a passenger is killed on the flight Monk and Natalie take to Paris. Once in Paris, they visit the catacombs (strange place to go), where the walls are lined with the bones of people condemned on the guillotine long ago. Monk finds a fresher skeleton and concludes it was dumped more recently. Naturally, Natalie is annoyed. But then, when Monk and Natalie go out to dinner at a blind restaurant (where you sit in total darkness), a woman sits down with them who says "I know what you found". Monk senses someone approaching them due to his heightened awareness (a CallBack to the episode "Mr. Monk Can't See a Thing"). There is a noise, and Monk tells Natalie that the woman in question has just been murdered. Natalie is naturally pissed, thinking Monk can't get the skeleton case off his back, until one of the waitresses trips, prompting the house lights to be brought up, revealing that the woman sitting at their table has been stabbed and killed with Monk's steak knife and the attacker has fled.

** In the novel ''Mr. Monk on Patrol'', after Monk and Natalie are nearly incinerated in their sleep by an arsonist who torches their hotel room with a Molotov cocktail, Summit police officer Walter Woodlake tells Randy, "Chief, I thought these two were supposed to drive crime ''down'', not up."

** His FanNickname has been '{{Shinigami}} Conan' for a while now. Or Shinigami Kudo, depending on the context. Shinigami Shinichi is a little ''too'' alliterative. Though it doesn't seem to have been ''quite'' this bad before he shrunk--he was so ''delighted'' at the opportunity to show off in that roller-coaster beheading incident; horribly desensitized and self-centered, but not fatigued by constant death. Ran wasn't even that desensitized yet.