Darth Wiki / Jonas Jacoby Mysteries

The Jonas Jacoby mystery series is a hopeful series of Mystery stories by troper Jacoby Investigative under the pen name "Nathan Rourke".

Jonas Jacoby is a PI based in the little town of North Candel, Georgia. He's been hoping for years that he'd get to be a detective worthy of Poirot or Sherlock Holmes. The problem is...well, nothing really happens in North Candel, and no-one in the rest of the state hire him for such matters. Just infidelity, insurance, background checks. Not exactly brain racking jobs.

That all changes when a plastic surgeon by the name of Victor Raccolto hires him to solve the murder of his assistant, Ruth Brigid. It's just what Jonas has been waiting for, and hey, he even gets some time working the case with the best detective in the Georgia State Bureau, Noelle Jacoby... AKA, his older sister. Soon enough, Jonas works his little grey cells and finds the killer, making his mark in the world of solving mysteries.

   If only things were that simple.   

See, Raccolto is not just some plastic surgeon. He is also Morire, a demon with a fascination for murders and the people who solve them. The murder of Ruth and Jonas solving it is the latest in his millennia of finding sleuths and holding a loved one's soul over their heads. Based on some barely disguised contracts (that Jonas didn't even read before signing), Morire explains the game: when he says so, Jonas has to solve a murder before Noelle. If Noelle cracks the case first, Morire gets her soul.

Be careful what you wish for, eh?

---

This series contains the following tropes:

• Abnormal Ammo: Claus Hammerstein is shot with a shotgun shell that has had the pellets removed and replaced with a small sleigh bell.
• Accidental Murder: More than a few times.
  • Jeremy Brinn didn't mean to kill Amanda Semmler. Amanda died due to the Love Potion he gave her being improperly made.
  • Sebastian Guillaume was killed when the Gilberts pulled at him and caused him to strike his head on one of the many Cupid statues around the party.

• Alliterative Name: Naturally with Jonas Jacoby.
• Amoral Attorney:
  • Lars Dahlquist is a crooked divorce attorney who will pull any dirty trick for his clients.

• Asshole Victim: Enough for its own page...
  • Bethany Green from A Plague on Your Houses.
    • Markus Langransky from the same book isn't exactly on the same level as Bethany, but he's still a rather unpleasant and relentlessly strict landlord.
  • Save for a maid who gets drowned, this applies to every victim of The House of Evil. From an Amateur Sleuth who enjoys destroying people's lives to a Rich Bitch who treats her employees like slaves to an Amoral Attorney, no-one is crying when the Trémaux family are killed.
  • Avery Vance, Sr. from To the Slaughter. The man was such a sadistic and abusive rapist that his own son strangles him to death and chops up his body.
  • Landry Skinner from Skin of Your Teeth. Described as a complete bastard by everyone he comes into contact with, Skinner is a cruel and joyless businessman who treats everyone around him like they're less than nothing. His killer or at least, the guy who organized it, however, is not sympathetic. This is because the motive behind it was that Landry didn't come to his birthday party when he was ten, and as such he couldn't order an ice-cream cake due to not having the discount for a high party. Jonas and the other people involved in Landry's death are just outright baffled when they hear this.
  • It makes sense that the main villain, vampire Zvonimir Dujimić of Death of a Vampire Hunter.
  • Claus Hammerstein and E.S. Jacobs. They are the owner and head banker respectively of the North Candel Bank and are two of the greediest pieces of garbage to live in town.
  • Dane LeVasseur and Colten Shaw of From Cradle to Grave. The two are gun wielding lunatics who want to arm children to prevent them from their biggest threat (which is clearly people of color), and were willing to kidnap a newborn infant to try and prove why children need guns. When the baby's biological father manages to shoot them dead, Jonas really does not blame him.
  • Each of the victims of Strangers at the Galloway Motel, to varying degrees:
    • Mia Cherry, who was perfectly willing to sleep with her sister's husband. While her sister was suffering from breast cancer.
    • Dr. Arvin Anholts, who was willing to cut off funding to not only his son-in-law, but to his daughter's passion project unless she divorces him.
    • Harris Sullivan, a sleazy PI who blackmails men for money and doing his dirty work, and blackmails women for money and forcing them to sleep with him. Juliana even states that she really hopes that Harris is burning in Hell next to her sister.
    • Phillip Weiss, who was trying to drown Tim Schober in false safety violations to run him out of his store so Phillip's son could take it for his own business.
    • Liam McFarland is probably less of an outright asshole, but he does hold onto a piece of art he doesn't even want purely because his co-worker Callum Peterson wants it.

• Batter Up!: Nathan Alexander from Old Habits and All... is killed this way.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Kit Velldinger eventually confesses to stabbing Finn Eisenberg out of self-defense for him trying to sexually assault her. Jonas soon finds out that in reality, Finn was confronting her over her skimming money from her charity projects.
• Blackmail Backfire: Something that falls under more than a few blackmailers in the series, such as:
  • Bethany Green from A Plague on Both Houses.
  • Gene Green from Rock till You Drop, with one of his killer s.
  • Jeremias Köler in Speaking of Witch....
  • Quinn Owens from Killed Inaction.
• Bludgeoned to Death:
  • John Carroll from A Mean One is killed by having his head smashed with a crystal ball prop.
  • Robin Fox has their head bashed in with part of their sculpture in Death of the Artist.
  • Amiya Campbell's killer in Killed Inaction used a pry bar to beat her to death.
  • Vincent Ghislain is murdered in The House of Evil when the killer clobbers him over the head with an antique torch.
  • Isaac Hawthorne beats Oswald Crowner to death with a baton in Seeing The Light.
  • Finley Fuentes is killed with a socket wrench.
• The Big Rotten Apple: Dead Dove takes place in New York City.
• Casting Couch:
  • Andrew "Colonel Angus" Knox was fond of using this on his porn stars.
• Christmas Episode: The novella A Mean One and the novel Ghosts of Christmas Past.
• Deadly Delivery: The Mall Santa below is killed when he is shot with a gun through the gift box it was hidden in.
• Death by Falling Over:
  • The Grand Cynic's death in A Conventional Murder happened when stage crewman Beckham Banks shoved him off the stage, where he struck his head on a desk as he fell.
  • How Sebastian Guillaume/Samuel Gilbert really died.
• Dirty Cop:
  • Sheriff Clyde Battle from Jonas in Jail. Not only is the man cheating on his wife, he was willing to kill people who knew about it, be it a private investigator or one of his own deputies.
  • Frank Von Sydow's old fellow cops, who have been active members or covering for a white supremacist street gang. Frank grew a conscience and planned to testify against them, and they wanted him dead. The thing is, someone got to Frank before they did.
• Disneyland Dad: Steven Saunders is this to his sons. It's part of what drives their mother's boyfriend to frame him for murder.
• Disproportionate Retribution: A motive for a few murders:
  • A child actor on your show isn't giving the performance you want on your kids show? Impale his mother in a horrible way and make him see it.
  • Your agent is dropping you because you've been nothing but an asshole? Poison his coffee with strychnine. Thankfully, this one ends up killing the poisoner instead.

• Dr. Jerk:
  • Dr. Arvin Anholts, as seen in Asshole Victim above.
  • Dr. Marcel Graham.
  • Dr. Brooke Russo

• Electrified Bathtub: E.S. Jacobs is killed by being pushed into a fountain while holding a broken dancing Santa.
• Epic Fail: Kiran Groth points out to Jonas that their friend is such a screwup that he once set an ice sculpture on fire...without magic. Even Silas can't figure out how that happened.
• Evil Old Folks:
  • Warren Albright, the man who killed Jarrett McKee in As Dead as Disco.
  • Claus Hammerstein was in his late 70's when he died, and was an utterly greedy bastard.
• Extremely Cold Case: The inciting incident in Ghosts of Christmas Past is the death of Annika Seyfried, who died under mysterious circumstances in the 1840's.
• Eye Scream:
  • Otis Montgomery is killed by being stabbed in the eye with a bill spike.

• Fake Charity: A downplayed example with Kit Velldinger's various projects to help the homeless. In her own words, she does take whatever money's made as an even 50-50 split for the people that need it and herself.
• Gun Nut: The victims of From Cradle to Grave are these, as the heads of a foundation aiming to ensure everyone has a gun and can use it by the time they're five years old.
• A Family Affair: The killer's motive in Dead in Bed. Andrew's son Brandon moved out of Andrew's home as soon as he could, changed his last name to "Bowers", and hasn't spoken to him in years. However, Brandon's wife Judy ends up meeting Andrew while on a business trip and starts having an affair. When Brandon is informed of this, he confronts Judy, who sets up a way to kill Andrew and get his money. Judy is planning to expose her husband as the killer and walk away with the money, but Brandon sees right through this. He also plans on just donating his inheritance to domestic violence shelters just to spite his dad. All in all, the affair was just the straw the broke the camel's back for him.
• Hated by All:
  • Landry Skinner. He's hated by his employees, his family, his dentist, even his priest. His employees plan to throw a party when they find out he's dead.

• Hate Sink:
  • Eileen's mother Penny Lennon and her stepfather Zac Finnegan from Deadbeats and Bodies. The two are loathsome hypocritical hedonists who are only back in Eileen's life to mooch off her until Zac can retake his poistion in his father's investment firm. Jonas states that he actually hates them more than he can Joseph Keefe, the actual murderer of the book.
  • The trio that make up Jeremias Köler and his friends.
    • There is not one nice thing about Jeremias Köler. From his first appearance to his last, he is nothing but a smug asshole constantly insulting any fat person he sees.
    • Tyler Bowditch, a Men's Rights Activist with all the misogyny such an idea implies. [[spoiler:And not only is he revealed to be a murderer, he committed said murder while trying to rape the victim.
    • Then there's Bradley Anson. He is a deeply misogynistic incel running a revenge porn website, and unlike Jeremias or Tyler who are open about their awfulness Brad did his things in secret while hiding behind a façade of civility and respect.
• Heroic B So D:
  • Jonas gets something like this when he first learns about the supernatural being real.
  • Agent Calvin Delmont gets this when he sees his father (who was an agent of the CIA, mind you) taking part in the Capitol Riots.
• Humans Are Bastards: Morire certainly thinks so. Considering how many murders he's been able to organize, he may have somewhat of a point...
• Hypocrite:
  • Penny Lennon and Zac Finnegan are outraged when they find out they've both cheated on each other multiple times...even though their marriage came as a result of Penny cheating on her partner.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: What mainly motivates Otis Montgomery to sabotage students with GEDs. He does think people with GEDs are too stupid to deserve college, but that's mostly because he's the only member of his family who isn't a professor at a prestige university.
• Insistent Terminology: Jonas really insists on being called a private detective over a private investigator.
• Inspector Lestrade: Noelle is this to Jonas. She's much better at being a Lestrade than most, but on some occasions is prone to missing a connection Jonas can see.
  • Detective Brock Racine, the detective most often partnered with Noelle, plays this trope straight.
  • In general, whenever Jonas is working a case outside of North Candel and even out of the state, the female detectives he's working with are more on the ball than male ones, even if they don't quite look at things like Jonas does, such as Lt. Heath from Dead in Bed.
• Insufferable Genius: Jonas has a bad habit of being this.
• I Never Said It Was Poison:
  • Spencer Reynolds from Killed Inaction gives himself away as the one who killed his co-worker Amiya Campbell by explaining that anyone could have broken in, grabbed a pry bar, and killed her. This is despite the fact that her body and the murder weapon were in the back room, so he shouldn't have been able to know that, considering he apparently just showed up and clocked out of work before the murder. It doesn't help his case that going for a pry bar seems odd, as they are in an aisle rather far from the door, whereas a bunch of solid mallets were displayed as part of a sale the hardware store was having is the first thing a thief going through the front door would notice.
• Jerk Jock: Jeremias Köler is this, as fatshaming people he finds that aren't up to his standards of health comes to him as naturally as breathing and working out. It's why there's really no-one in North Candel that gets sad when he is murdered in Speaking of Witch...
• Karmic Death:
  • He wasn't necessarily a horrible person, but there is something to be said about package thief Ned Osso getting killed by stealing a mail bomb sent to someone else.
  • Kenneth Jenkins dies by tripping and falling into a bear trap set up by his murder victim.
  • Dr. Graham trained one of his wife's horses to buck and kill her. His killer manipulates his favorite horse to throw him off a cliff.
  • Bradley Anson was a man who got his kicks fatshaming women on his blog. He was killed by being crushed under the weight of plus sized models when the runway they were on broke.
• Kill It with Ice: Iced Cold serves as a deconstruction to the idea that an icicle is the perfect murder weapon. Not one of the killer's attempts to stab someone to death with one go smoothly at all.
• Klingon Promotion: Joseph Keefe's motive for murdering Réamann Phelan was so that he could become president of Finnegan Investments.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
• Lotsa People Try to Dun It: This turns out to be the case for Colonel Angus' murder in Dead in Bed.
• Make It Look Like an Accident:
  • This is Harry St. Carter's style of trying to kill Andrew Knox in Dead in Bed.
  • Faye Graham from Horse of Another Murder was allegedly killed when she spooked one of her horses, who kicked her in the head. In reality, her husband trained it to rear kick when it heard a certain phrase.
  • To most people, it seems Bradley Anson's death was the result of the runway the models were standing on broke.
• Mall Santa: One of these is the victim in a Christmas novella.
• Manipulative Bastard: This is Morire's MO. He doesn't make people kill or possess them, he just puts ideas into their heads and let them go from there.
• Missing Mom:
  • Eileen's mother started an affair when Eileen was about 3, and left her and her father when Eileen was 5.
  • Brandon Knox's mother, one of many porn stars his father Andrew bedded, left his father when he was about 3 and didn't take Brandon with her.
• Morally Bankrupt Banker: The victims of ٪٪.
• Murder by Mistake:
  • The mail bomb in Post Mortem was supposed to kill screenwriter Harold Stringer at his winter home. However, the bomb was stolen by package thief Ned Osso while Stringer was yet to arrive, and ended up killing Osso and two of his roommates.
• Murder by Remote Control Vehicle: Erco Malan from If You're So Smart... is murdered when someone hacks into his smart car and sends him barreling into the company's fountain at top speed without a seatbelt.
• Mystery Magnet: Enforced, with Jonas and North Candel after Jonas signs Morire's contract.
• Never One Murder: If the story takes place around Halloween, expect there to be at least two murders.
• Never Suicide:
  • Gary Foreman of Glamour Shot is found dead, apparently having shot himself in the head after killing Caylee Suarez. Jonas quickly determines Gary wouldn't even have been able to use the gun to kill Caylee the way she was shot without hurting himself, and figures the real killer framed him.
• Nice to the Waiter:
  • Ricky Jacobs is this to waiters, leaving generous tips. His husband, E.S. Jacobs...not so much.
• Non-Indicative Name: Porn producer Andrew Knox is nicknamed "Colonel Angus". His son reveals that, ironically, the man hated going down on women.
• Offing the Offspring: Caylee Suarez's killer is her father Domingo, who killed her for her life insurance after she planned to get a new manager for her modelling and replace him, taking away his gravy train.
• Only in Florida: It is revealed that this trope is due to a bet a demon made with the natives of Florida and the conquistadors. Both sides lost.
• Only Known by Initials: E.S. Jacobs' full name is Everett Sidney Jacobs, but he prefers E.S. It's also great for Claus, as he saves money engraving his name plate that way.
• Papa Wolf:
  • Cade Turner is fiercely protective of his daughter. It's what leads him to stabbing Otis Montgomery to death after he insulted her, figuring she was as much of a failure as her high-school dropout father.
  • In From Cradle to Grave, a baby by the name of Niko Mueller is kidnapped. It is later found out that the victims of the book organized it to try and make their gun rights cause look needed. They are killed by the baby's father for it... the biological father, anyway.
    • For added bonus, the man's name actually is Wolfe.
• Patricide: Andrew Knox from Dead in Bed is murdered by his son Brandon Knox, AKA Brandon Bowers.
• Pet Contest Episode: First Pedigree Murder has Jonas solving a murder around an amateur dog show. While this happens, he briefly gains the ability to understand dogs... who speak in DoggoLingo.
• Pipe Pain: Phillip Weiss from Strangers at the Galloway Motel is bludgeoned to death with an old piece of lead pipe.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Lars Dahlquist gets one texted to him before his murder in Dead at Forty Fathoms:
  You know the joke about the shark and the lawyer?
  Professional courtesy won't save you here.
• Red Herring:
  • Frank Von Sydow's planned testimony against his old unit. They wanted him dead to avoid going to prison, alright. But Frank's killer was actually Klemens Brausewater, who Frank had discovered was part of a violent home invasion ring.
• Secret Other Family: The plot of Two Weddings and a Funeral.
• The Scrooge:
  • The victims of Ghosts of Christmas Present were cheapskate bankers. Claus Hammerstein fits the bill more so because he is an old man himself.
• Straight Gay:
  • E.S. Jacobs is a reserved man, and is married to a man.
• Take That!:
  • In general, the right wing is not treated with respect.
  • Paid in His Own Coin is this towards cryptocurrency.
• Tampering with Food and Drink:
  • Jeremias Köler dies in Speaking of Witch... when the killer puts acid into his energy drink while he's training for a marathon.
  • Deputy Joe Freeman from Jonas in Jail is murdered when the killer puts cyanide in his coffee.
  • Autumn Cole dies from weed killer poured into her soup in An Organic Murder.
  • One victim is killed by eating a poisoned gingerbread cookie.
• Tap on the Head:
  • All three victims of The Life of a Leprechaun are killed with a single blow to the head from a shillelagh.
• To Be Lawful or Good: Noelle is strictly lawful, while Jonas has more moral flexibility to be good.
• Two Dun It:
  • Claus Hammerstein and E.S. Jacobs were killed by a father and son who were trying to expose their corruption and get rid of their own debt.
  • Juan Ruiz's killer is a Colombian assassin sent after him. Gavin Guthrie, however, was murdered by his wife.
• Vacation Episode:
  • When Paradise Sleeps sees Jonas follow Eileen, Bennett, and Rory to the vacation town of Venasol, Costa Rica.
  • Beverly Hills 90-187 has Jonas come to LA to join his cousin at a high school reunion in Los Angeles.
• Who Murdered the Asshole:
  • Landry Skinner was so hated by so many people that the head security guard of his business can easily name fifteen people, himself included, that would have wanted to bump him off when he is interviewed.
  • Andrew Knox from Dead in Bed. No one in his studio liked him and they are happy he's dead. After the killer is found, it's revealed that everyone Jonas suspected of killing him has tried at least twice.
• Would Hurt a Child: Dane LeVasseur and Colten Shaw organize the kidnapping of a newborn baby so they can rescue him and prove why kids need guns. Their brilliant idea is to shoot the kidnappers while the ransom money is being exchanged...while one of said kidnappers is holding the baby.
• You Are Fat:
  • Practically every other sentence that comes out of Jeremias Köler's mouth when an overweight person is around him.
  • Also the case for Bradley Anson from Big Beautiful Homicide, especially towards overweight women. It makes it particularly ironic when he is killed by being crushed under several BBW models when their runway platform collapses.
• You Got Murder: The mail bomb in Post Mortem.